The Devil in the Snow

December 18, 2017
Shona Marks, the dysfunctional heroine of this overly complicated psychological thriller from British author Armstrong (The Insect Rosary), is separated from her husband, Maynard, who lives in London but keeps a locked room in the Essex house they once shared. The estranged couple’s 14-year-old daughter, Cerys, bristles under Shona’s restrictions and obviously favors Maynard. A custody battle over Cerys looms as they draw closer to divorce. Then Cerys goes missing. Meanwhile, Dominic, a rootless teen, attaches himself to Shona as a sort of spiritual savant and claims that he has a message from Meghan—Shona’s daughter who died in infancy; Maynard greatly resents that she was fathered by another man, and Shona blames Maynard for the child’s death—but he can’t reveal it immediately. Shona also has to worry about Jimmy, her imprisoned uncle who knows things about Maynard that he hides from her. Armstrong’s meandering tale never gathers much steam as it wanders between mystical musings and prosaic conflicts among characters who never really come to life.