Tamara Siler Jones, Ghosts in the Snow (Bantam Books, 2004)

Ghosts in the Snow is the debut novel from Tamara Siler Jones. A genre-blending mix of equal parts fantasy, mystery, and romance, this novel is an omen of a lot of good reading to come.

Dubric Bryerly has a serious problem. Several, in fact. Someone is killing and mutilating servant girls, and as Castellan of Castle Faldorrah, Dubric is responsible for finding and stopping the killer. Though he is quite good at his job, this time there are complications. For one, he has few clues; for another, he is haunted by the ghosts of the dead girls. And finally, his prime suspect is the king's grandson, Risley Romlin. Risley is also deeply in love with Nella Bridgerman, who is the killer's ultimate target. Dubric is faced with the dual tasks of finding the killer and preventing civil war, both of which seem hopeless.

Jones does a masterful job of keeping the action moving. She leaves few chances for the readers to catch their breath. At the same time, she keeps the tension building all the way to the climax with plot twists and red herrings galore. This is a novel that will likely require a single sitting for the first reading. It did for me. I was caught up in the lives of the characters and cared about them.

The semi-medieval setting is handled nicely. The details of everyday life in the castle are presented with finesse, and enough history is worked into the story to give it depth without info-dumping. The difficulties of long-range communication and the hard work of everyday life are vital parts of the story. Though magic is illegal in the story's world, bits of it keep working their way in, enough to keep things interesting, to say the least. This is a well thought-out world, believable and comfortable for the reader.

A savage Ripper-style killer is a horror at any time and place, and Jones does not back away from the horror. She is not afraid to show the unspeakable happenings in the castle and their effects on the people of Faldorrah. She also exhibits a gleefully macabre sense of humor that springs out of darkened doorways at unexpected times. Later in the book, as the ghosts become bored, their behavior provides a hilariously bizarre backdrop to the crisis erupting around them.

Though the novel contains a few rough spots -- there is one conversation between Nella and Risley in which they thank each other incessantly, which was irritating -- the book is well-written overall, with very few bumps to disturb the reader's involvement. As a first novel, Ghosts in the Snow is a tour de force. I look forward to many more fine novels from Tamara Siler Jones in the future.

Ghosts in the Snow was listed on the Locus Recommended Reading for 2004 list. More information about Tamara Siler Jones, Ghosts in the Snow, and its sequel, Threads of Malice -- due out in November, 2005 -- is available at her Web site.

[Carter Nipper]