About In the Dead of Winter
In the Dead of Winter (The Blue Water Mysteries)
1st in Series
Setting - Michigan
Publisher: Camel Press
Publication date: February 10, 2026
Print length: 260 pages
Paperback
ISBN-10: 1684923182 / ISBN-13: 978-1684923182
Digital
ISBN-13: 978-1684923199 / ASIN: B0G2TD4JKH
Victoria Treadwell, dispatcher for the sheriff's office, is driving to work in a snowstorm when she sees a car fish-tailing behind her. Horrified, she watches at the car swerves off the road. When she heads back to help, she finds the driver bent over the steering wheel and barely breathing. In the back seat is a tiny child in a pink snowsuit. Victoria calls for an ambulance and then dials her boss, Pete Manstead, Undersheriff, of Charlevoix County. The ambulance arrives and the paramedic tries to shock the woman's heart back into rhythm, but the driver, who they learn is named Carly Yellowwood, is dead. From the autopsy, Pete finds Carly died of a drug overdose, although she didn't use drugs. The coroner lists the cause of death as murder. Pete sends his deputies to visit Carly's neighbors and learns she has been seeing two men. One is her ex-husband, Joe Yellowwood, a Native American living on the nearby reservation. No one knows the second man. Since Carly Yellowwood was divorced and has a new boyfriend. Pete believes it's a crime of passion. Victoria, who hopes to adopt Carly's motherless child, thinks the motive is far darker.
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About Lyn Farrell
Review
Who could possibly want the young mother of a three-year-old dead?
In the Dead of Winter is the first novel in author Lyn Farrell’s new Michigan-set series, the Blue Water Mysteries, and pairs the investigative talents of a sharp-witted civilian sheriff’s dispatcher with the untested but earnest undersheriff, investigating his first homicide. Victoria Treadwell was making her way to work over treacherous snow-covered rural roads when she saw a car come up behind her, fishtail, and slide off the road and stop headfirst against a tree. When she turned back to see if the driver needed help, she discovered a young woman, barely breathing and crumpled over the steering wheel, as her toddler daughter witnessed everything from her car seat in the back. As the young woman succumbs, it becomes apparent that her death was not the result of the accident but of the premeditated actions of a murderer.
Victoria, the married mother of two, is a talented amateur sleuth, hampered by her status as an untrained civilian. She’s quick to see connections in the clues, and her online research skills really help further the investigation. She takes a personal interest in the case and hopes she and her part First Nations husband can adopt the dead woman’s tiny daughter, a First Nations child, out from under the girl’s own father and grandmother, neither of whom may be in the best situation to care for the toddler.
Undersheriff Pete Manstead, while a dedicated officer, is the tortoise to Victoria’s hare in their race to bring in the killer before the sheriff, who is out of town at a conference, returns to take over the investigation. A self-acknowledged plodder, Pete thinks and rethinks his every move. Still, he tends to leap to some pretty tenuous conclusions as he works to identify the killer. Together, the result is quite a unique police procedural with several potential suspects, all of whom look good for the murder until their alibis prove they’re not the one. Slowly but surely, the two tease out the truth of Carly Yellowstone’s sad death.
I recommend IN THE DEAD OF WINTER to readers of mysteries, especially
those who enjoy a story set in blizzard-like conditions or Michigan’s rural
north.
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