The Body in the Snowdrift: A Faith Fairchild Mystery (Faith Fairchild Mysteries) - Hardcover

Page, Katherine Hall

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060525304 ISBN 13: 9780060525309

Publisher: William Morrow, 2005

Synopsis

Award-winning author Katherine Hall Page is one of the reigning queens of the traditional mystery. Now, in this fifteenth mystery in her much-beloved Faith Fairchild series, she takes us to the blustery slopes of a Vermont ski resort, where murder makes an unwelcome appearance at the Fairchild family reunion.

When caterer Faith Fairchild learns of her father-in-law’s plan to celebrate his seventieth birthday by treating his children, their spouses, and his grandchildren to a weeklong stay at the Pine Slopes resort, her reaction is mixed. Yes, she likes to ski and yes, she loves the kin of her husband, the Reverend Thomas Fairchild, but both in smaller and shorter doses.

The Fairchilds have been coming to the ski area since Tom and his siblings were toddlers and are old friends of the owners, the Staffords. All starts well as the family settles into neighboring condos, until Faith discovers a body on one of the cross-country trails -- the apparent victim of a heart attack. Then Pine Slopes' star chef vanishes without a trace. One catastrophe follows another: a malicious prank at the sports center, a break-in at the Fairchild condo, and one of the chairlifts is sabotaged. Who is the mysterious woman living in the "gingerbread cottage" deep in the woods? And what are adolescents Ophelia Stafford and Faith's nephew Scott -- filled with angst and anger -- up to? Family secrets abound and family dynamics explode.

Then one morning skiers arrive and are horror-stricken to find the slopes covered with patches of red snow, the result of a body falling, or being pushed, into the water supply for the snow-making guns. Faith must get to the bottom of the crime spree if she wants to salvage the reunion, prevent the closing of Pine Slopes -- and save her own life.

About this title

About the Author

Katherine Hall Page is the author of twenty-three previous Faith Fairchild mysteries, the first of which received the Agatha Award for best first mystery. The Body in the Snowdrift was honored with the Agatha Award for best novel of 2006. Page also won an Agatha for her short story “The Would-Be Widower.” The recipient of the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement, she has been nominated for the Edgar, the Mary Higgins Clark, the Maine Literary, and the Macavity Awards. She lives in Massachusetts and Maine with her husband.

From Publishers Weekly

Agatha-winner Page's 15th Faith Fairchild mystery (after 2004's The Body in the Attic) offers the usual tantalizing mix—an attractive setting, great characters, good food and murder most foul. Faith, an upscale caterer, and Tom, her minister husband, join the extended Fairchild clan to celebrate the birthday of Tom's father, Dick, at the struggling Vermont ski resort of Pine Slopes. The death of an old friend of Dick's, local lawyer Boyd Harrison, from an apparent heart attack while skiing throws a pall over the reunion. The plot thickens as the family gathers. Craig, Dick's athletic youngest son, has a new wife, gorgeous gold digger Glenda; Betsey, Dick's sister, is a micromanaging dictator; Betsey's three children long for a little space to grow and her husband just longs to bow out. Throw in a missing chef, whom Faith is talked into replacing until another can be found, and the granddaughter of the resort's owners, who's going through a goth stage. Heat things up with a body discovered in the water supply of the snow-making machine, and there you have it: a perfect Faith concoction, with recipes.
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Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060525304
• ISBN 13: 9780060525309
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256