In The Midst Of Winter

Isabel Allende Scribner €11.99

A snowstorm in Brooklyn is the catalyst for lifechanging events in this uneven novel. Chilean academic Lucia Maraz has overcome illness and a bad marriage, highly-strung professor Richard Bowmaster has barricaded his heart against the possibilities of love, and illegal immigrant Evelyn Ortega has escaped gang violence and poverty in Guatemala, only to become unwittingly involved in the murder of her employer, whose body Maraz and Bowmaster plot to conceal. The characters’ back stories are described with Allende’s customary tenderness and compassion but the crime caper element is, unfortunately, more than a little ludicrous.