The Last Winter of Dani Lancing

A complicated structure, including leaps from character to character and shifts back and forth in time, interferes with the reader’s enjoyment of British author Viner’s ambitious first novel, a psychological thriller. Twenty years after the unsolved murder and rape of 21-year-old Londoner Dani Lancing, who was attending university in Durham, Dani’s father, Jim, is literally living with Dani’s ghost—a ghost who cannot remember the circumstances of her death. Dani’s mother, Patricia, left Jim years earlier; she is so obsessed with her search for her daughter’s killer that she’s unable to relate to another human being. Det. Supt. Tom Bevans, an appealing figure whose unrequited love of Dani drove him to find a career in helping victims and their families, has news for the Lancings: Dani’s case is going to be reopened, and old evidence reexamined with state-of-the-art methods. The satisfying ending, though a bit of stretch, makes up for the stuttering plot and disorienting flashbacks. Agent: Simon Trewin, William Morris Endeavor. (Oct.)