Tess Gerritsen takes her main characters out of Boston for this fast-paced mystery/thriller. Maura Isles is in Jackson, WY for a medical conference and meets up with an old college friend who invites her to go with him, his daughter and another couple to a cross-country ski lodge after the conference. They end up stranded in the middle of nowhere when their car goes off the road during a terrible snow storm. The story follows Maura as she and her traveling companions stumble upon a strangely deserted community and evidence of foul play while trying to find shelter. When Maura doesn’t return to Boston when she is expected, Jane Rizzoli, her husband Gabriel Dean and Maura’s lover Daniel Brophy travel to Wyoming to find her.

Gerritsen does a great job describing the isolation and fear Maura and her companions feel, as well as their growing tensions with one another about the choices they have made. The fact that the now deserted community belongs to a polygamist cult adds another facet to the story.

Allison