My Review of Where the Snow Bleeds by Wendy Dranfield

My Review:

This novel is gripping and gory and had me engrossed from the opening scene which mixed the macabre with an enthusiastic dog. If you're a dog lover you're in for a real treat with dogs of various breeds and sizes being littered throughout the text. Where the Snow Bleeds has real heart with characters to care about and root for. The central protagonist is Dean Matheson and he's ably assisted by his faithful sidekick Rocky the dog. Dean has runaway from all who love him and a tragic past that he's struggling to come to terms with. Wendy Dranfield writes Dean as evoking a palpable sense of loss that would have made many men bitter but not Dean. He's an all round good guy and the perfect private investigator for the concerned mother of a missing daughter to hire. There's an underlying subtext of just what a parent will do for their child that permeates events in both a positive and negative way.

Another character that Dranfield has the reader care about is Eva Valdez, a detective in mourning for her killed 'in the line of duty' husband and receiving very little support from from her department. She too is on the same case as Dean and both end up in Winter Pines Ski Resort to search for two missing girls: Hannah and Jodie. Hannah's parents are devastated by her disappearance whereas Jodie is a product of the foster care system. Dranfield makes a subtle and pertinent point about the foster care system and how it can fail its charges, this adds an extra layer of depth to Where the Snow Bleeds and makes it a cut above your average crime thriller. Again parallels abound as she is not the only foster kid in the narrative just as Dean is not the only grief stricken character.

This is a novel that is so much more than the sum of its parts.

Thanks to Rachel Gilbey for inviting me on this blog tour.