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Crime mystery set in Northern Colorado

19th September 2018

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka, crime mystery set in Northern Colorado

Colorado has this specific smell in the Summer, like pine needles recovering from a miserable winter and hot, red dirt sliding down steep mountainsides

Set mainly over three days in February 2005….

Crime mystery set in Northern Colorado

School student Lucinda Hayes is found dead, her neck broken, a gash to her face. The death, in the heart of fictional and sleepy Broomsville in Northern Colorado, touches everyone and the book focusses on three characters:

  • Cameron is a young scholar, whose father, police officer Lee Whiteley was tried for a heinous attack several years ago and has left his son with emotional and psychological difficulties. Cameron observes those around him as though through the lens of a microscope.
  • Russ, who is a police officer, now part of the investigating team, was once Lee Whiteley’s police partner.
  • Jade, a young woman, also a student at the school, has been experimenting with witchcraft and has wished Lucinda dead. There is probably a bit of body dysmorphia mixed into her psyche.

The author has an acuity of observation, slewed to the unpleasantness of the human condition, with ‘love’ and obsession at the heart. The detail is cinematic, as though the reader is observing the unfolding events through a videographer’s lens. It is a very unique and appealing writing style.

There is a lot of teenage angst to plough through that spares the reader little, the chapters are short and to the point. The characters are not bad people but I felt the preponderance to expatiate on tawdry natures and drives was ultimately sad and depressing. There are some backstories to help understanding and thus the story dots back in time and then moves forward at the end by several weeks, once the perpetrator has been identified and arrested.

I came away from this book feeling rather despondent about people and their psychological drives. At times – and I am not quite sure why – the novel reminded me of the film Little Miss Sunshine. In the film, however, there is the redemptive character of little Olive Hoover, but in this book there is little relief from some very gloomy lives. It also has a hint of Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History” and Christopher J Yates’s “Black Chalk” but ultimately Girl in Snow doesn’t have the cracking incisiveness and characterisation of these two books. Having said that I do feel this author is nevertheless one to watch.

I was left wondering how the author felt as she came to the closing pages of her novel? Was it perhaps a cathartic write for her? Overall a mesmerising read at some level, with quality writing, but I just didn’t really connect with the storyline.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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