I have to admit that I enjoyed this novel, which exceeded my
expectations by a long shot. The main
action takes place at an Australian ski resort, where our first person
narrator, Ernest Cunningham, joins his family to celebrate the release of his brother
Michael from prison. In fact, Ernest was
the witness who sealed Michael’s fate at the trial. The event gets off to a rocky start when a
dead body shows up in the snow before Michael has even arrived. An inept cop named Crawford chalks the death up
to exposure, until Sofia, Ernest’s stepsister, proves that in fact the dead man
is a homicide victim. Ernest becomes the
de facto investigator of the crime, but he actually just writes books about how
to craft a murder mystery novel. We
assume that he will eventually solve the crime, but in the meantime the plot is
a bit overly intricate. Past events
related to Ernest’s brother Jeremy and their father, their connection to the
man Michael murdered, and the disappearance of a girl named Rebecca McAuley are
somewhat convoluted. There are so many
killers and so many murders that I found it challenging to keep up, and the
family relationships just added another layer of confusion. On the flip side, the main storyline hums
along with Ernest as our entertaining guide and first-hand observer. One loose end dangles at the end, and I think
the author should have tidied that up a bit.
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