First Tracks

May 6, 2019
This uneven series launch from O’Connell (The Last Night Out) introduces Greta Westerlind, of the Aspen, Colo., ski patrol. Greta, who has survived an avalanche that killed a friend, wakes up in the hospital with no memory of the accident. She no sooner arrives home than what appears to be a furnace malfunction fills her house with carbon monoxide. She escapes, but ends up once again in the hospital being treated by handsome physician Duane Larsen. Greta’s world is further complicated when someone close to her comes under suspicion for the murder of a young local woman. She readily accepts an all-expense paid trip to St. Moritz, Switzerland, from a grateful billionaire whose child she rescued on the slopes, believing that it will allow her to leave her worries behind. Instead, she uncovers evidence that the world’s great ski slopes have become the hunting ground of a serial killer. Her detective skills are paltry at best, with clues arising from chance meetings and impetuous travel plans. Still, the descriptions of skiing and cold-weather survival skills grip. Those who enjoy reading about the lifestyles of the horribly rich will be most rewarded. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary.

May 15, 2019
O'Connell (The Last Night Out, 2018, etc.) hits the slopes with a new heroine whose leading strengths as a detective seem to be an ability to absorb serious physical punishment and a complete lack of fear. Her love of skiing sent Greta Westerlind from Milwaukee to Aspen 15 years ago, and once she looked around she knew she'd never leave. Her job taking care of 80-year-old Sam Simpson ended when he died and left her a life interest in his A-frame house, a place she never could have afforded on her own. And she loves her job as a ski patroller. But not everything has come up roses. Sam's children fought her tooth and nail over the bequest; Joel Simpson still radiates hostility every time she sees him; and, most recently and urgently, she's barely survived an avalanche that killed her ski buddy and secret heartthrob, retired bond trader Warren McGovern, whose pregnant wife, Zuzana, expresses unbridled suspicions about what the two of them were doing on the mountain together--a question Greta can't answer because she's lost her memory. Luckily, handsome Dr. Duane Larsen is on hand to help her recover first from the trauma of the avalanche, then from a near-fatal attack of carbon monoxide poisoning as she sleeps. And he makes no secret of his amatory interest in Greta. But she's haunted by her ex-lover Jack's warning that bad things come in threes. So far, so menacing--except that Greta's third adventure involves her rescuing young Richie Alvarez from a sudden accident, inspiring his father, wealthy Mexican developer Pablo Alvarez, to whisk her off to St. Moritz on his private jet for several more rounds of skiing and unrelated complications until O'Connell suddenly seems to remember that Greta has a killer to track down. No prizes for plot construction but a scarred, gutsy heroine who surely deserves a second chance.

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May 1, 2019
Ski patroller Greta Westerlind is having a rough week, beginning with being caught in a terrifying avalanche in which her dear friend Warren was killed, then suffering from carbon-monoxide poisoning, and capped off with the attempted arson of her home. With her memory of the avalanche in tatters, Greta feels as if her world is as inverted as that of a skier lost in a snowstorm. Adrenaline junkie Greta lives for the mountains of Aspen, where she can have perfect powder and glorious scenery every day, but getting back to her normal life remains imperiled both by her failure to uncover what really happened that day on the mountain and by the series of Ted Bundy-like murders in the area. This compelling, Scandinavian noir-style thriller should appeal to readers of both Ruth Ware and Arnaldur Indridason.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)