Snow is a rarity in Maura Donovan's small village in County
Cork, Ireland, so she wasn't sure what to expect when a
major snowstorm rolled in around Sullivan's pub. But now
she's stranded in a bar full of patrons--and a suspected
killer in a long-ago murder.
Maura’s been in Ireland less than a year and hasn't heard
about the decades-old unsolved crime that took place nearby,
let alone the infamous suspect, Diane Caldwell. But the
locals have, and they're not happy to be trapped with her.
Diane, meanwhile, seeks to set the record straight,
asserting her innocence after all this time. And since no
one is going anywhere in the storm, Maura encourages Diane
to share her side of the story, which she’d never had a
chance to do in court.
Over the next few hours, the informal court in Sullivan’s
reviews the facts and theories about the case--and comes to
some surprising conclusions. But is it enough to convince
the police to take a new look at an old case? A clever spin
on the classic locked room mystery, Cruel Winter, the
fifth in New York Times bestselling author Sheila
Connolly's series, will delight fans of the Emerald Isle.
Thank you! You really got the plot (and didn't give away anything critical). The story is loosely based on a real crime, still an open case in Ireland, and still making headlines all these years later. (Sheila Connolly 7:22am July 7, 2017)