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SNOW

BY HAPPY accident, I may have stumbled on an antidote to feeling grumpy or anxious about being stuck indoors: read heart-juddering thrillers with snowy backdrops.

Tear through a description of someone caught in an avalanche or pursued through a forest by a weaponised psychopath, and suddenly not being able to get out in this, frankly, challenging weather seems an immense blessing.

I’d been feeling frustrated that there’s not a snowball in hell’s chance of my family going skiing this February half-term — an already delayed holiday from last Easter. Then I picked up a preview copy of Shiver by Allie Reynolds, to be published on Thursday. I was 130 pages in before I looked up, mildly surprised to find my sitting-room and no jagged outline of the Alps through the window.

Shiver bolts a classic thriller scenario onto an unfamiliar setting: five former snowboarders receive an invitation to a reunion in Le Rocher, a French ski resort where they all spent a season a decade ago. That ended in tragedy, with the presumed accidental death of the charismatic Saskia. Once at the remote hostel, it becomes clear to the five that whoever invited them has a vengeful agenda.

Feeling aggrieved that your children are not in school? Rosamund Lupton’s immersive, moving, school siege drama, Three Hours, might allay any misgivings about Microsoft Teams’ homeschooling. It imagines, with terrifying scope, an Americantype shooting at a progressive establishment in Somerset during a snow day. I read it in two gulps.

Sticking with American psychos, Stephen King’s Misery is a terrifying account of kidnap and coercion. Author Paul Sheldon’s nightmare begins when he is caught in a snowstorm in Colorado and crashes his car. Nurse Annie Wilkes is not the saviour she seems.

Nobody needs an excuse to stay safe indoors this January. But if you need a distraction, then immerse yourself between the covers of a nail-biting, wintry thriller.