When a young girl is found dead, frozen in the backyard of local busybody Lenore Featherjohn's B&B, many presume her an angel because her body looked to be "praying." This tragedy throws the mostly Christian town of Fog Point into shock, fear and endless gossip about who might have committed the terrible murder. Longtime novelist Hall (Dark Water
) offers readers an intense mystery against the wintry backdrop of a town cloaked in ice and snow, among Fog Pointers who have long-buried secrets of their own. Unfortunately, she leaves readers not only with the task of figuring out a murder, but also keeping track of what seems an endless cast of characters—business partners Jake and May of the Purple Church; the local minister Ben and his unhappy wife, Amy; Lenore Featherstone and her deadbeat sons, Earl and Carl, to name just a few. Each ultra-short chapter switches point of view and even abruptly jumps to the first person, present tense occasionally. But if audiences can weather the task of flipping back and forth to remember who's who, they will be rewarded with an engaging mystery set in a town experiencing a crisis of faith in more ways than one. (Mar.)
