The call came in late in the day on her first day in the new
job. Inspector Agnes Luthi is ready to go home, yet despite
the winter storm outside, she is more than willing to take
it. Leaving the police station in Lausanne in her Citroën
C1, she soon encounters the full brutal face of the
blizzard. How stupid of them to all be out on the ice and
the freezing wind for some society woman who wandered
outdoors and died. Frozen like a statute, the young woman
had died wearing an expensive ballgown and a worn old coat.
What was she doing outside? Then, Inspector Luthi notices a
slit in her back. Now, it is not just death but murder. Who
could have done this? Why?
Inspired by the 2005 ice storm in Geneva, SWISS VENDETTA is
written by the talented debut novelist Tracee de Hahn.
Hopefully, it will be the start of a new mystery series
featuring Inspector Agnes Luthi, a widowed Swiss American
member of the Violent Crimes Unit based in Lausanne,
Switzerland. Agnes is very professional, intelligent and
compassionate. Despite her own personal concerns, she
strives to cope as well as she can with what she has to deal
with in trying to hold a proper police investigation when
none can leave and potentially there is a murderer amongst
them. Dare she trust any of them?
While SWISS VENDETTA sets the stage to be part of an ongoing
series, the novel can easily be read as a stand-alone story
as it is complete from its exciting start to its surprising
conclusion. SWISS VENDETTA has a number of aristocratic and
eccentric characters that come across very authentically as
their mannerisms and speech ring true to who they are. While
the storyline starts dramatically, it builds slowly as the
ice storm has confined them all to the Château Vallotton and
a nearby mansion near the frozen shoreline of Lac Léman.
Given that, SWISS VENDETTA remains intriguing, especially
with the interlacing of the backcasting stories of the
characters' past and especially around the death of Agnes'
husband.
If you like classic "Who done it" mysteries or police
procedurals like the Inspector Gamache series by Louise
Penny, you are sure to relish SWISS VENDETTA. It has all the
great ingredients: a realistic plot, a chilling atmosphere,
an old family chateau full of art and antique things and a
cast of potential murderers. See if you can figure out who
the murderer is!
Swiss Vendetta, Tracee de Hahn's mesmerizing
debut, is an emotionally complex, brilliantly plotted
mystery set against the beautiful but harsh backdrop of a
Swiss winter.
Inspector Agnes Lüthi, a Swiss-American police officer in
Lausanne, Switzerland, has just transferred to the Violent
Crimes unit from Financial Crimes to try to shed all
reminders of her old life following her husband's death.
Now, on the eve of the worst blizzard Lausanne has seen in
centuries, Agnes has been called to investigate her very
first homicide case. On the lawn of the grand Château
Vallotton, at the edge of Lac Léman, a young woman has been
found stabbed to death. The woman, an appraiser for a London
auction house, had been taking inventory at the château, a
medieval fortress dripping in priceless works of art and
historical treasures.
Agnes finds it difficult to draw answers out of anyone—the
tight-lipped Swiss family living in the château, the
servants who have been loyal to the family for generations,
the aging WWII survivor who lives in the neighboring
mansion, even the American history student studying at the
Vallotton château's library. As the storm rages on, roads
become impassible, the power goes out around Lausanne, and
Agnes finds herself trapped in the candlelit halls of the
château with all the players of the mystery, out of her
depth in her first murder case and still struggling to stay
afloat after the death of her husband.
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