Skiing into Murder

Laura Morland is back! So is Thomas, her insouciant art detective lover who scares Laura out of her wits with an unexpected appearance as she rides a train in Switzerland. The reunion is heartfelt but dreadfully smelly due to its preposterous location. Thomas is posing as a conductor while tracking down art stolen by the Nazis long ago, and gets shot at for his efforts. Then his lovely daughter Catherine makes her own surprising appearance in the dead of a frigid winter night to...
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Laura Morland is back! So is Thomas, her insouciant art detective lover who scares Laura out of her wits with an unexpected appearance as she rides a train in Switzerland. The reunion is heartfelt but dreadfully smelly due to its preposterous location. Thomas is posing as a conductor while tracking down art stolen by the Nazis long ago, and gets shot at for his efforts. Then his lovely daughter Catherine makes her own surprising appearance in the dead of a frigid winter night to announce that her father has disappeared. Fortunately, Laura has Violet, the six foot red-headed detective friend who has recruited her to help prevent a kidnapping at an international conference, to assist in the search for Thomas. It soon becomes obvious that Violet's case and the case Thomas is pursuing are inextricably intertwined. As the four sleuths try to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, they become ever more embroiled in a mysterious puzzle that involves long-lost art, threats against innocent children, their old nemesis prostitution, illicit drug peddling and a bewildering variety of other criminal activities. Romance flourishes despite the dangers, not just for Laura and Thomas, but for Catherine, too. The action takes place in two of Switzerland's most prestigious ski resorts - Zermatt and Murren, a tiny car-less town in the Alps that nestles beneath Switzerland's most famous peaks. Laura and her friends have a memorable breakfast in the Piz Gloria, the restaurant where a well-known James Bond movie was filmed, and where they spot Thomas with a gun at his back below them. A wild chase on skis begins to an old bomb shelter (the Swiss have thousands of them) that holds clues to both mysteries as well as art treasures that have thus far eluded frantic efforts to find them. It also holds more than one criminal with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Blizzards, more murders, ancient castles, train trips through Switzerland's most magnificent scenery abound in this mystery, as do intrigue, attempts on Laura's life that never seem to work, and tangled relationships between children and parents who may or may not really be their parents. Above all, readers are treated to a stunning cast of new and unforgettable characters: the preposterous Lindsey, who may or may not be a CIA agent; Maurice, a Swiss Jew who lost everything in the holocaust and could be an art thief, but whose warmth brings comfort to young people especially; and Felicia, an eccentric woman whose life has been filled with adventure and at nearly 80 still is. Like many others in this mystery, she too might be savior or sinner. The villain(s) in this mystery are unequivocally evil, but not until a final contretemps at the famous Castle of Chillon on the shores of Lake Geneva, do Laura and her fellow sleuths finally identify the person who made it possible for these horrors to occur.