A Colder Kind of Death (A Joanne Kilbourn Mystery) - Softcover

Bowen, Gail

Softcover

ISBN 10: 077101483X ISBN 13: 9780771014833

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart, 1995

Synopsis

When a prisoner is shot to death in the exercise yard of a Saskatchewan penitentiary, Joanne Kilbourn finds herself haunted by a part of her past she wished had never happened. The dead prisoner is Kevin Tarpley, the man who six years earlier had brutally killed her politician husband, Ian, in a seemingly senseless act alongside the TransCanada Highway.

The haunting takes on a more menacing cast several days later when Tarpley’s sinister wife, Maureen, is discovered dead in a snow-swept Regina parking lot. A brightly coloured scarf is found wound tightly around her neck, a scarf that belongs to none other than Joanne Kilbourn. Soon this single mother, author, university professor, and TV-show panelist is deemed the “number one” suspect in Maureen Tarpley’s demise.

Joanne knows there has to be a connection between these two murders. But what is it? A cryptic letter sent to Joanne by Kevin Tarpley just days before his death intimates that Ian Kilbourn’s killing may not have been as senseless as first assumed. In fact, there are hints that some of Ian’s political colleagues may have been involved. But how deeply and in what way?

Then there’s the faded photograph of a pretty young woman and her baby that Joanne finds tucked in the wallet of her dead husband. Does it offer any clue to Ian’s murder, or to the deaths of the Tarpleys? Warily, Joanne Kilbourn is forced to follow a tangled trail deep into a heartbreaking past she never knew existed.

A Colder Kind of Death is the fourth novel featuring Gail Bowen’s “reluctant sleuth,” Joanne Kilbourn. With its deft mix of wry humour and mayhem, closely observed family scenes and gripping suspense, warm characterization and betrayal, it confirms Gail Bowen’s stature as one of the greats of mystery fiction.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this title

From the Back Cover

When the woman convicted of killing her husband six years earlier is shot to death while exercising in a prison yard, Joanne Kilbourn is forced to relive the most horrible time of her life. And when the prisoner's menacing wife is found strangled by Joanne's scarf a few days later, Joanne is the prime suspect.

About the Author

With her Joanne Kilbourn mystery series, Gail Bowen has become “a name to reckon with in Canadian mystery letters” (Edmonton Journal). The first book in the series, Deadly Appearances, which was published in 1990, was nominated for the W.H. Smith-Books in Canada award for best first novel. It was followed by Murder at the Mendel (1991), The Wandering Soul Murders (1992), A Colder Kind of Death (which won the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel of 1995), and A Killing Spring (1996). Gail Bowen is also head of the English Department at the First Nations University of Canada.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 077101483X
• ISBN 13: 9780771014833
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 232