The Body in the Snowdrift (Faith Fairchild Series #15)

by Katherine Hall Page

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060525323
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/30/2006
Series:	Faith Fairchild Series , #15
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	354,196
Product dimensions:	4.18(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.84(d)

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.

Read an Excerpt

The Body in the Snowdrift

A Faith Fairchild Mystery

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By Katherine Page

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 Katherine Page
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060525320

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Chapter One

The curtains at the window didn't quite meet in the middle, and a sliver of gray winter dawn cut across the bedclothes like a dull kitchen knife. Boyd crept out of bed, groping for his slippers as his feet touched the cold floor. At the door, he stopped and fondly looked back at the motionless figure under the bedclothes, aware that he was alone in his belief that the early hours of each day were the most precious. He closed the door to the adjoining bath noiselessly, turned on the ceiling heat lamps to take the chill off, and dressed quickly. He'd laid his clothes out the night before, even his parka. Holding his boots in one hand, he went back into the bedroom and then out into the hallway. The bedclothes hadn't stirred, but the shaft piercing them was brighter. It was time to go.

In the kitchen, he put on his boots, fed the cats, and stuffed some Clif Bars, an apple, and a bottle of water into his fanny pack. He'd eat breakfast on the trail. His skis and poles were in the mudroom, where he'd left them the previous day. Reaching for the rest of his gear from one of the shelves, he noticed a pair of boots that had been kicked off and left sprawled next to a heap of outerwear. The untidymess was crowned by one of those Polartec court-jester hats in Day-Glo orange and blue. So, the guest room was occupied. He was tempted to pitch the stuff into the snow.

Instead, he grabbed his things, pulled the door open, and stepped outside. The cold air almost took his breath away. His annoyance vanished into the clouds of vapor from his breath. Hastily, he pulled his neck gaiter up, knowing that as soon as he got moving, he'd be peeling it off.

It was quiet. Too cold for birds. No sound except the steady schuss of his skis as he made his way through the woods, heading toward the resort. He moved effortlessly, rhythmically poling, side to side, a graceful Nordic dance. He passed the base lodge. The lifts didn't open until 9:00 a.m., and not even the ski patrol was up at this hour. He glanced toward the employee parking lot. Pete, the head of maintenance, was pulling in. It was a toss-up as to whether his truck outdated him or the other way around. He'd managed to keep the ski resort going since the1960s with, as he put it, "mostly baling wire and duct tape, plus the odd piece of chewing gum." Boyd was tempted to stop for a chat, but the mountain beckoned, so he continued on his way, climbing high up into the backcountry.

They'd had about ten inches of much-needed new snow overnight, and he soon paused for some water, stripping off his gaiter. He'd reach the groomed Nordic trails soon. This shortcut was his secret, and even though it meant striking a trail through the powder, he wouldn't skip it for the world. The sun was rising higher in the sky. Soon it would be one of those picture-perfect Vermont snow-scene days -- the sky so blue that it looked dyed like an Easter egg and, beneath it, Christmas trees dusted with frosting. No holiday could compete with the everyday sights on the mountain as far as Boyd was concerned. He'd been skiing here all his life, even before it was a resort. He and his father would ski up the mountain, pushing themselves to the limit; then there would be that long, mad, glorious run down. In some museum in Norway, he'd heard, there was a pair of skis over four thousand years old. What he and Dad had used seemed just as ancient, Boyd realized, looking down at the new Fischers he'd treated himself to in December. But what held true for those early Norsemen, and their descendants everywhere, was their addiction to the sport. Speed, endurance. It was a kick. Endorphins, adrenaline, call it what you will.

Boyd liked to ski fast, straight up or straight down. It didn't matter. That was the beauty of it. All you needed was snow. No chairlifts. No technology, unless you counted the skis, Salomon boots, carbon-fiber poles, Swix waxes, even clothing. He laughed to himself. He was wearing Craft underwear -- the self-proclaimed "Apple computer of underwear" -- made of some kind of miracle fiber.

Global warming was shrinking winter, and these last few years, he'd hungered for skiing to the point of taking summer vacations in New Zealand and Australia, trying to sustain the feeling, sustain the pace.

Last March, he'd gone to Norway to ski in the Birkebeiner, a fiftyeight- kilometer race from Rena to Lillehammer. He'd wanted to do it for years, attracted as much by the story behind it as the event itself. During a period of civil unrest in Norway in the thirteenth century, the Birkebeiners, the "birch leggers," were the underdogs and so poorly equipped that they used the bark from birch trees for boots. To keep Haakon Haakonsson, the tiny heir of the dying king, safe from the rival faction, the Baglers, two Birkebeiners took him far across the mountains to safety. It was a perilous journey to make in the winter, freezing cold, but the skiers, with the boy strapped to one of their backs, made it. He grew up to become King Haakon and defeated the Baglers, bringing the country to new heights of glory. During the annual race to commemorate the event, each skier carryied an eight-pound pack to simulate the little prince. Boyd had thought he would be the oldest, but he found many far older -- and in better shape -- among the nine thousand entrants. It had been one of the happiest days of his life. The route was lined with cheering crowds; the skiers constituted a community unlike any other he had experienced. In Norway, skiing was as natural as breathing -- and started almost at the same time. He'd go back next year.

Continues...

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Excerpted from The Body in the Snowdrift by Katherine Page Copyright © 2006 by Katherine Page. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

Fun for all readers, and some great recipes, too.

The Stuart News

"Fun for all readers, and some great recipes, too."

The Stuart News (Stuart))

"Fun for all readers, and some great recipes, too."

The Stuart News (Stuart)

[W]ell told...close, careful observations of the complicated dynamics within large families...[Page] at her solid best.

New York Times Book Review

[W]ill leave her readers guessing until the very end and wanting another serving of Faith Fairchild.

Bangor Daily News (Maine)

At her solid best in The Body in the Snowdrift, Page organizes a reunion for Faith's big clan of in-laws at Pine Slopes, a tiny, trim ski resort in Vermont that someone with murderous intentions is determined to put out of business. The winter-wonderland setting is not only scenic; it's also a great spot for tensions to explode and for Page to mourn the small family-run resorts that are disappearing as fast as large, rambunctious families themselves.
— The New York Times

Marilyn Stasio

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. Agent, Faith Hamlin. (May 1) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

While vacationing in Vermont, caterer Faith Fairchild (The Body in the Attic) and family run into trouble. Faith discovers the body of a local lawyer, the hotel chef disappears, and a bloody corpse stains snow on the slopes. A perfect puzzler for the popular sleuth. Hall lives in Lincoln, MA. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Fun for all readers, and some great recipes, too.

The Stuart News (Stuart