A Yukoner friend, reading my first novel, told me its wintry theme was just the thing for a February read north of 60. I’ve always thought that mysteries and a winter weekend go together like cancelled social obligations and a thermostat setting your dad would never approve of. Here are six mysteries, some less well known than others, to while away what feels like the longest part of the Canadian year. Winter in these books is that quintessentially Canadian chronotope, part of Margaret Atwood’s tonal “dark background,” interacting with narrative viewpoint and any murderous impulse lurking in the vicinity. A winter setting intensifies the themes of melancholy, isolation, panic and loss. The worst fears of readers, in other words: and so delectable to experience vicariously on a raw January day as darkness closes in.

*****

The Dogs of Winter, by Ann Lambert

Readers have praised how Ann Lambert uses a Montreal winter in her 2020 detective novel to support the book’s mood and themes. A scene in The Dogs of Winter involves an anonymous Indigenous woman run over by a vehicle in heavy snow. The driver isn’t sure what they’ve hit. As the story unfolds, winter in Montreal stands for the weight of destiny and the power of place over us all, and the concealing snow perhaps represents Canada’s collective urge to erase and deny.

*

The Calling, by Inger Ash Wolfe

There’s an angel of death theme in this nordic-esque noir story that takes place in rural Ontario, and the gloom is reinforced by the time of year, November sinking into early winter. Feisty and compassionate Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef sets out to rescue people from the clutches of a serial killer on a spree, but who will rescue Micallef? A lot of this  story is told from the point of view of the murderer, which may reduce the whodunit aspect but certainly increases the menace and claustrophobia.

*

Back Roads, by Andrée A. Michaud

Michaud’s writing is a heady mix of the very literary and horror-inflected mystery. In Back Roads, there are many mysteries: Who is Heather Thorne? Who is the woman who seems to be her double? Danger lurks everywhere, but has there even been a crime? For Michaud, the forest in winter is quasi-supernatural, often a composite of remote legends and the worst of our collective fears. Characters in her books melt away psychologically under the impact of all this uncanniness, just as one might disappear into the wilderness without a trace.

*

The Starlight Claim, by Tim Wynne-Jones

The quintessential rugged Canadian wilderness is also a threat in this adventure story, but the mood is very different, and just as well since this is a book written for a younger audience. In The Starlight Claim, a boy must match wits with a group of prison escapees and with the even more dangerous forces of nature. The blizzards and bitter cold are not only threats, however. There is something testing and redemptive about winter for teenage Nate, who still has nightmares about a dead friend. This is a survival story as well as a thriller.

*

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, by Alan Bradley

Although the holidays have come and gone, some treats no doubt remain, and they would go perfectly with a yuletide mystery such as Bradley’s 4th book in the Flavia de Luce series. Buckshaw is being rented out to make a film over Christmas, but a reclusive movie star whom everyone hates is murdered—with a strip of celluloid film. There’s a raging blizzard without and a positive glut of suspects, including the film crew and many villagers. Christmastime at Buckshaw and “serial charmer” (Kirkus Reviews) Flavia, aged 11, are probably the main attractions in this perfectly cozy read.

*

Winter Willow, by Deborah-Anne Tunney

This slim novel is exquisite, haunting and strange. If you need more than that, it’s also a Gothic tale set in Ottawa in 1976, with descriptions of winter that support the storyline beautifully and make you shiver as you read. We are in Daphne du Maurier territory here. Winter Willow tells the story of a PhD student about to lose her funding who falls into the clutches of a sinister and tragic man from a wealthy family who needs help sorting his papers, as sinister and tragic figures often do in books. There’s the eponymous brooding and lonely mansion—yes, in Ottawa—and an overprotective housekeeper, and the sense everywhere of secrets. Once you’ve read Winter Willow, the '70s will always seem a bit Gothic to you.

*

Learn more about The Suspension Bridge:

“Dowdall infuses rich atmosphere with captivating uncertainty and characters undeniably Canadian yet redolent of some other time and place.” –Anthony Bidulka, author of From Sweetgrass Bridge

The Suspension Bridge is set in a meticulously-described small Canadian river city circa 1962—a setting increasingly fable-like as improbable plot premises merge with the flawed choices of characters. This hybrid-genre, darkly comic mystery follows the seasonal cycle of agnostic Sister Harriet’s first year of teaching at a posh boarding school, where three “top girls” vanish and where many other things personal and cosmic go wrong through a long and especially harsh winter. Everyone in Bothonville, pronounced Buttonville, seems to be falling under the spell of the gigantic bridge the city is building. But if the bridge is sentient and ill-intentioned, this seems hard to separate from a natural world of increasingly chaotic elements, of wind and wild weather, of fire and ice. Amid the dreams, double lives and impending disasters, who will make it out of Bothonville alive?