I picked up a copy of Mary Daheim's The Alpine Winter (#452) because of its Christmas ornament cover. Normally, I'm a sucker for a Christmas mystery. Not in this case, though. Unless you've read every one of her previous Emma Lord mysteries, you won't be able to keep up with the constant references to earlier cases and the ensuing relationships between characters to the point you lose the thread of the current murder mystery. And frankly, I didn't care enough about the characters to even bother to try. This was a rare DNF for me. (Did Not Finish!)
Emma Lord is a small town newspaper editor carrying on an on-again, off-again affair with the local divorced sheriff. Tongues will wag in a small town, and as far as I'm concerned, these two unpleasant people deserve each other. Plus, with her brother and illegitimate son as guests for the Christmas holiday, both of whom are priests, she's angry with her brother for judging her on her morals. He's a priest, for goodness sake. What did she expect?
I'll tell you what I expected: a mystery that could stand on its own two feet. This didn't.
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