Katherine Hall Page
The Body in the Snowdrift (2005)
Author: Katherine Hall Page
Genre: Mystery (Amateur Detective)
Plot Summary:
The fifteeth book of the Faith Fairchild Mysteries is set in a small skiing community of Pine Slopes in Vermont. Faith is attending the celebration of her father-in-law's seventieth birthday with her family, Reverend Thomas fairchild and her two children. While at the Resort, people are found dead and it means trouble for the resort. The owners have to fight to keep the family business running. As Faith's extended family deals with rising family troubles and the resort trying to keep business good, Faith investigates the crimes and cooks on the side. SPOILER: Faith follows the clues and puts her self in a terrible situation with the murderer. She finds out that the resort manager has a plan to become owner of the small resort and decides to kill the owner and the chef. With the help of a beautiful old hippie woman, they create enough problems to shut down the business so that they can buy the resort and make it a reall sucess. Faith escapes from the murderer's grasp with the help of her nephew and a devient teenage girl to go back to her normal life in catering.
Geographical Setting: Pine Slopes Resort, Vermont
Time Period: Present Day (2005)
Series: Faith Fairchild, book 15
Appeal Characteristics:
Katherine Hall Page writes a very classic cozy mystery akin to an Agatha Christie. She presents a working woman with old fashioned values who stumbles over dead bodies. All the clues are given slowly, but at a compelling pace so the reader is able to figure out the puzzle by the time the author outlines the murders. Katherine Page also adds family dynamics to the mix to bring a higher level of characterization of the characters. As a part of that characterization the culinary aspect of the main character is very well developed. There are even recipes included in the back for the readers that like to try a new dish. The writers style is not confined to linear writing and jumps back and forth among different storylines to create a deeper understanding of plot. Readers looking for a light amateur detective cozy mystery would like the pace and clean storyline of this culinary mystery.
Read-alikes: If the culinary aspect of Katherine Hall Page's books peek interest, try THe Cereal Murders, a cozy with an amateur detective who is a caterer stumbles accross a dead body of a teenage boy. She soon gets very anxious for her own teenage son as she investigates. Along those same interests there is also Marinade for Murder featuring the Quilliam sisters, who are trying to buy back their inn and find a murdered TV producer. The sisters begin to investigate slowly and give a few recipes on the side. Other recipes can be found in Snow place to die set in a very similar situation as Page's Body in the Snowdrift. Judith McMonigle Flynn finds herself snowed in with 10 suspects and a dead caterer in a remote mountain lodge. If you are looking for small town cozy mysteries with a little flavor, try Tyme of Death. An uptown lawyer moves to a small town in texas to start a herb shop when she finds a body and begins to investigate. Other amateur detective mysteries include those written by Carolyn Hart, such as Death of the Party. This book is part of the Death on Demand series, which includes many titles, a series very similar to the Faith Fairchild Series. Anne Darling is featured in this slow paced cozy as she reunites a group of people, who all were there at the time of Jeremiah Addison's murder, to disclose the real criminal.
Red Flags: Some language, drug reference, slight alcohol consumption, murder
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