CoffeeBear.net

Review: Ghosts in the Snow

Posted by Mark | Filed under Books, Reviews

A while back on the advice of AWelkin, I picked up a copy of Ghosts in the Snow. I read it, loved it, got dis­tracted and never wrote up any kind of review. A cou­ple of weeks later, I read again. I still loved it but I still didn’t write up a review of it. Some­times, life just works against you. *sigh*

I think the best descrip­tion of Ghosts in the Snow, by Tamara Siler Jones, that I’ve heard is “foren­sic fan­tasy”. It’s got ghosts, mag­i­cal items, for­eign reli­gions and grue­some mur­ders. Dubric Bry­erly is the Castel­lan¹ of Cas­tle Fal­dor­rah and it is his duty to keep the peace. Recently, a ser­ial killer has been stalk­ing serv­ing maids and killing them, one after another. The trou­bling part for every­one is that no one has seen the killer. The real trou­ble for Dubric is the ghosts of the slain are haunt­ing him.

Unlike many of the fan­tasy authors that I’ve read; Ms. Jones doesn’t try to beat it into your skull that this is a fan­tasy novel. Though there are ghosts and magic, these are pre­sented more as facts of life than as extra­or­di­nary things that you must pay atten­tion to. I find this method to be both a more real­is­tic² & a more enjoy­able approach. But it’s more than just her approach to describ­ing the fan­tasy ele­ments that makes me really enjoy Ms. Jones book. It’s the won­der­ful characters.

• Dubric: a com­bi­na­tion of kindly old uncle, drill ser­gant & pri­vate eye.
• Dien: Dubric’s right-hand man. A bit of a bruiser, but with a big heart
• Nella: An inno­cent trapped in the mid­dle of the vicious murders
• Lars: The unwanted son of a noble­man who works for Dubric and strives to make his fam­ily proud.

It’s an amaz­ing piece of work and I give it 5 out of 5 stars. I highly rec­om­mend you pick it up and read it; prefer­ably leav­ing your week­end free, so you can fin­ish it in one sitting.

¹ Dictionary.com defined castel­lan as “The keeper or gov­er­nor of a cas­tle.” For read­ers of Ghosts in the Snow, it’s bet­ter to think of it as chief of police com­bined with head detec­tive.
² Though I’m not entirely sure that it is proper to call an approach to writ­ing fantasy,“realistic”.

Similar Posts

• Review: Valley of the Soul
  Valley of the Soul My rating: 5 out of 5. My first introduction to the world of Faldorrah came abou ...
• Why I Read?
  A friend of mine recently asked if other people had similar reactions when reading a good book. Sinc ...
• Review: Threads of Malice
  Threads of Malice My rating: 4 out of 5. I read Threads of Malice last week1 and wowsers! If you've ...
• Review: Just A Geek
  On the advice of a friend (Pukka), a while back I began to read Wil Wheaton's blog. Though I'd seen ...
• First REAL Snow
  We're getting our first real snow of the season. We've had a few clouds piss some snow down on us tw ...