The Alpine Winter - Tapa dura

The picturesque town of Alpine in the Cascade Mountains is decked out in Christmas cheer, but at the "Alpine Advocate, "editor and publisher Emma Lord is fretting over how her brother and her son--both priests--will react to her affair with Sheriff Milo Dodge. Another family is singing the blues when Postmaster Roy Everson shows up with bones that may belong to his mother, who's been missing for sixteen years. But the most disturbing discovery is the decomposed corpse found in a cave on Mount Sawyer. When Milo returns from his own family ordeal, he and Emma try to find time away from the unnerving investigation to reunite. But they've drawn the attention of a dogged killer who thinks the lovers' bliss is to die for . . . literally. Scandal, intrigue, desire, and untimely death are the ingredients in Mary Daheim's deliciously chilling holiday treat. "[An] enduring favorite . . . [Mary] Daheim takes her readers back to the quaint little town of Alpine, Wash., where murder and mayhem always seem to be on the back burner."--Wichita Falls "Times Record News" "Daheim keeps this long-running series lively with generous helpings of small-town chatter, charm and middle-age romance."--"Kirkus Reviews" "Daheim is one of the brightest stars in our city's literary constellation."--"The Seattle Times"

Mary Richardson Daheim started spinning stories before she could spell. Daheim has been a journalist, an editor, a public relations consultant, and a freelance writer, but fiction was always her medium of choice. In 1982 she launched a career that is now distinguished by more than fifty novels. In 2000, she won the Literary Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. In October 2008 she was inducted into the University of Washington's Communications Hall of Fame. Daheim lives in her hometown of Seattle and is a direct descendant of former residents of the real Alpine when it existed in the early part of the twentieth century until it was abandoned in 1929. The Alpine/Emma Lord series has created interest in the site, which was named a Washington State ghost town in July 2011.