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For most people, returning to their childhood hometown is a pleasant experience, a time to remember friends and family and happy times. But when ex-FBI interrogator-turned private eye Alex Rourke is summoned back home to Winter's End, Maine, to help Sheriff Dale Townsend solve a brutal and cold-blooded murder, it's anything but a pleasant occasion. Townsend is stymied when a local woman is brutally murdered. It's not hard to find the apparent killer. After all, a young man is standing over her body, two knives in hand. But there is no direct evidence linking him to the murder and he's certainly not confessing to anything. That's when Townsend puts in a call to Rourke, whose training in interrogation makes him an ideal candidate to get through to the silent and enigmatic suspect. Nicholas, as the suspect is known as, obviously knows a lot about Winter's End, and the town's history and residents. Nicholas feeds Rourke bits and pieces of clues and soon the visiting PI realizes his presence is no accident and that he and his family are part of the answer to the seemingly senseless slaying. Slowly Rourke, haunted by his own past which includes a nervous breakdown and an over-reliance on pills to get him through the days and nights, begins to understand the darkness turned loose on the small Maine village. It's an evil which has reached out, unknown, to take other lives, including, very possibly, Rourke's father and mother. Now the question is, will he be able to unravel the clues in time to keep himself from becoming another victim of the bloodbath. Rickards is a freelance journalist living in England. This is his first novel. It's a promising debut, but Rourke is almost too much of a loner if this is meant to be the start of a series. Though his childhood is explored, there's no feeling that there's a basis for continuing to expand story lines or relationships presented in WINTER'S END. Rourke needs a broader canvas than one small Maine town. It will be interesting to see what path the next Alex Rourke suspense novel will take, making the assumption that this is not a standalone novel.
Reviewed by Gary Svoboda, November 2003
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