Perish the Day

The excellent final volume in Farrow’s Storm Murders trilogy (after 2016’s Seven Days Dead) takes retired Montreal detective Émile Cinq-Mars and his wife, Sandra, to New Hampshire to visit her dying mother. The couple also plan to attend the graduation of Sandra’s niece Caroline from the Dowbiggin School of International Studies. But tragedy intervenes with the murder of one of Caroline’s friends, Addie Langford, whose body is found posed on the stairs inside a campus clock tower. The killer redressed his victim, applied makeup postmortem, and adorned the corpse with a necklace. The family connection to Addie leads Sandra to encourage Émile to play a part in solving the crime, despite intense opposition to his involvement from the state trooper overseeing the inquiry. The case is complicated by two other murders, which appear connected. John Verdon fans will be pleased by Farrow’s pitting of his well-rounded lead against a puzzle worthy of the detective’s acuity. Agents: Carolyn Forde and Bruce Westwood, Westwood Creative Artists (Canada). (May)