Cover Story

Every good mystery needs a cover story. This one is murder.

When a record blizzard buries Whitby and knocks out the power grid, the library's backup generator makes it the natural choice for a warming station. Ann Beckett and her colleagues open the doors, neighbors arrive with blankets and thermoses, Luna keeps the children settled, and Fitz makes his rounds with the quiet authority of someone who has always understood that a library's first job is to take people in.

For one long night, it almost works. Then morning comes.

One of the shelter guests is found frozen just outside the side entrance — no coat, no boots, and a wound that turns a tragic accident into something far more deliberate. The storm provides excellent cover. Too excellent, as far as Ann is concerned.

With no forensics team getting through until the plows do, she must work with what she has: a librarian's instinct for things that don't add up, a building full of people who've been awake all night, and a cat with an uncanny sense for where the truth is hiding.

In Whitby, it turns out, a blizzard makes a very convenient cover story.