Red Snow - Michael Slade

Here's a timely new release from Penguin Canada.

Red Snow is set in Vancouver, Canada - now. The 2010 Winter Olympics are set to begin February 12, 2010. Slade's novel opens in December 2009. A celebrated snowboarder goes off the beaten trail, on a route he's known to take. Part of him finishes the run. His head doesn't. Additional crimes draw in the Special X investigation unit of the RCMP. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) The 'X' unit are the 'psycho hunters." It seems an old nemesis is not done with the unit.

This was the first Michael Slade book I had read. (There are 14 others) Past crimes and criminals are explained, but in the beginning I felt like I was playing catch up as there are constant references to the past. I was able to get up to speed fairly quickly and got caught up in the tale. Slade incorporates lots of elements into his novels. The crimes are quite brutal, yet ingenious. Locked room mysteries and forensic techniques are effectively utilized. The weapons used are quite diabolical. Historical details are woven into the tale.

Lots and lots of action - quite frankly, I wondered if anyone would be left standing at the end. Without giving it away, the madman's plot is very, very plausible and quite frightening.

If you've read James Rollins' Sigma Force novels, you would enjoy Michael Slade.

Slade is the nom de plume of Vancouver lawyer Jay Clarke. Clarke specializes in cases involving the criminally insane. His novels draw upon that knowledge, Clarke's contacts within the RCMP and his own family history to give his novels a ring of authenticity.