This Mercy Carr Mystery set in green Vermont sees the setting turn white with snow. Mercy is a former military police officer, and with her husband, Troy, and baby Felicity, she attends Northshire’s annual Solstice Soirée. A series of bizarre and violent events occurs when THE SNOW LIES DEEP.

I need to say right away that the baby is safe. However, I can’t say the same for Santa Claus. The gentleman in the red suit this time is the town mayor, Lazlo Ford. He gets called away – lured into the woods more like – and when Mercy tracks him with her smart Belgian Malinois, Elvis, it really seems like sacrilege to report that Santa has been shot.

Troy is the local game warden, constantly tracking or suspecting poachers. His Newfoundland mix dog, Susie Bear, leads him to various traps, snares and hideouts during the tale. Seems like anything with fur is fair game to criminals. The locals shoot a deer to eat, according to legal limits. He suspects an out-of-state man living in a static trailer house, and a new commune extoling a doomsday cult. It does seem odd that no sketchy locals are implicated, but maybe they all got arrested in the previous books of the series. 

Mercy has family arriving, endless decorating to do, a tree to select and a baby to mind. She doesn’t have a badge, but still wants to solve the murder. Partly this is because Elvis, a retired bomb- sniffing dog, keeps leading her to clues. The number of people doing vanishing acts is amazing, especially in the cold and deep snow. We hear about Russian legends and oligarchs after the word Snegurochka, meaning the Snow Princess, is on a piece of paper left by Lazlo Ford.

Colonel Hugo Fleury, who is Mercy’s great-uncle, arrives at one point and provides a ton of background information. I was quite annoyed because this meant our characters didn’t have to research anything or interview anyone. No doubt there are some former agency people who have all this information at their fingertips, but it seemed like the author was taking a shortcut. On the other hand, that keeps the action moving faster.

This is a lively, intensively themed tale, with details about Druidic rituals for the solstice as well as European fairytales and the wildlife of the area. I enjoyed reading THE SNOW LIES DEEP, the seventh book in the series by Paula Munier, and would be keen to read more, especially for the clever dogs and the good use of landscape.