It's not unusual for John Cardinal to be hauled out of a warm bed on a cold night in Algonquin Bay to investigate a murder. And at first this dead body, sprawled in the parking lot of Motel 17, looks pretty run of the mill: the corpse has a big bootprint on his neck, and the likely suspect is his lover's outraged husband. But the lover has gone missing. And then Delorme, following a hunch, locates another missing woman, a senator's wife from Ottawa, frozen in the ruins of an abandoned hotel way back in the woods. Spookily, she was chained up and abandoned wearing a new winter parka and boots, with a thermos beside her--as if her murderer was giving her a whisper of a chance at survival.

This one was a bit of a struggle to get through, without me really being able to explain why. But I had just read the previous books in the Cardinal and Delorme-series, so I thought I'd read this last one as well. Something I like about the series is the town of Algonquin Bay and the descriptions of the surrounding landscape and this book was no exception. I felt I wanted take a trip there and visit all the places. (I visited Canada many years ago, but my visit was to Vancouver island BC which as far as I can tell is quite different in many ways, at least environmentally.)
I really have a thing for stories that take place in the polar regions, so the chapters from the research station was sort of a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately it was somewhat overshadowed by the concept: "To disturb the peace and quiet at a place and cause some drama; add woman." So tiresome.
Some aspects of the story were quite annoying and a couple of plot threads downright over-strained an unrealistic. If not to say cringe.
But over all I'm glad I read it, and now that I've finished Blunts Cardinal and Delorme-series it does feel a bit empty.

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Picked up the book a couple of days ago. It is my first time reading a book by Giles Blunt. Although I'm currently only halfway through the book, but have been enjoying it thus far.