The Delicate Storm (John Cardinal and Lise Delorme Mystery, #2)

This one's a stylish, atmospheric, psychological thriller. It follows Giles Blunt's Silver Dagger Award winner, Forty Words for Sorrow.

A gruesome discovery in the wilderness north of Algonquin Bay leads detectives John Cardinal and Lisa Delorme to a remote cabin that has served as an abattoir for a cold-blooded killer…

But the same woods hide other horrors and soon a second body is discovered, naked and shrouded in ice. When one of the victims is identified as an American, the RCMP is called in, but it's the involvement of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that arouses Cardinal's true mistrust. Is their interference due to a suspected terrorist link, or is there something even more sinister behind it?

With Northern Ontario in the grip of an ice storm of once-in-a-hundred-years severity, the woods take on a glittering, lethal beauty. In this winter wonderland John Cardinal must hunt down and confront a killer.

Librarian's note: the characters, settings, pub dates, etc. have been done for the six novels in the author's John Cardinal series: 1. Forty Words for Sorrow (2000), 2. The Delicate Storm (2003), 3. Blackfly Season (2005), 4. The Fields of Grief (2006), 5. Crime Machine (2010), and 6. Until the Night (2012).