Back home in the Kootenays after her Arizona honeymoon, Lane offers her assistance when neither the outgoing teacher, Rose, nor her replacement, Wendy, show up at the local schoolhouse one blizzardy Monday in December. But when she finds the teachers’ cottage ransacked with Rose unconscious and bleeding, and Wendy missing, Lane delivers Rose to the hospital in Nelson and turns the case over to her exasperated husband, Inspector Darling, and his capable colleagues, Sergeant Ames and Constable Terrell.

Never one to leave a post unmanned, Lane enlists as substitute teacher for the final two weeks before the Christmas holidays, during which time she discovers a threatening note in the teachers’ desk and a revolver in the supply cupboard. But these clues only convolute the case further. Who has been tormenting these women, and where has Wendy gone?

Meanwhile, Darling finds the body of a hit-and-run victim in a snowbank miles outside of Nelson, the residents of King’s Cove are preoccupied by the possibility of a new neighbour, and Sergeant Ames is as confused as ever by the inimitable Tina Van Eyck.

Iona Whishaw was born in British Columbia. After living her early years in the Kootenays, she spent her formative years living and learning in Mexico, Nicaragua, and the US. She travelled extensively for pleasure and education before settling in the Vancouver area. Throughout her roles as youth worker, social worker, teacher, and award-winning high school principal, her love of writing remained consistent, and compelled her to obtain her master’s in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. Iona has published short fiction, poetry, poetry translation, and one children’s book, Henry and the Cow Problem. A Killer in King’s Cove was her first adult novel. Her heroine, Lane Winslow, was inspired by Iona’s mother who, like her father before her, was a wartime spy. Visit ionawhishaw.com to find out more.

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“There are days when nothing suits a reader like a good old-fashioned classic cozy with a puzzle plot, a country setting and some nice slight characters. When that urge strikes, Iona Whishaw’s delightful B.C. series featuring Lane Winslow and, now, husband, Inspector Darling of the King’s Cove constabulary, are just the ticket … A really good book in a terrific series.” —Globe and Mail

“I absolutely love the modern sensibility of these novels, of their feminism, sense of justice, their anti-racism, their progressiveness, which somehow never seems out of place in a tiny BC hamlet in 1948 … But it’s never preachy or pedantic, and Whishaw continues to use her murder mysteries to explore the limitations on women’s lives and freedom that were contemporary to the period, and which are not yet so far away in the rear view mirror.” —Kerry Clare, author of Mitzi Bytes and Waiting for a Star to Fall

“Whishaw nicely captures the rhythms and dynamics of small-town life while maintaining suspense. Maisie Dobbs and Phryne Fisher fans will be pleased.” —Publishers Weekly

“A winsome cozy set in the Kootenays in 1947 … it’s the perfect series for fans of Miss Fisher and Maisie Dobbs.” —Zoomer Magazine

“Well plotted and laced with dry wit, Lane's adventures are entirely satisfying summer reading.” —Shelf Awareness