A LETHAL LESSON
Finalist for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes’
Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award
Back home in the Kootenays after her Arizona honeymoon, Lane offers her assistance when neither the outgoing teacher, Rose, nor her replacement, Wendy, show up at the local schoolhouse one blizzardy Monday in December. But when she finds the teachers’ cottage ransacked with Rose unconscious and bleeding, and Wendy missing, Lane delivers Rose to the hospital in Nelson and turns the case over to her exasperated husband, Inspector Darling, and his capable colleagues, Sergeant Ames and Constable Terrell.
Never one to leave a post unmanned, Lane enlists as substitute teacher for the final two weeks before the Christmas holidays, during which time she discovers a threatening note in the teachers’ desk and a revolver in the supply cupboard. But these clues only convolute the case further. Who has been tormenting these women, and where has Wendy gone?
Meanwhile, Darling finds the body of a hit-and-run victim in a snowbank miles outside of Nelson, the residents of King’s Cove are preoccupied by the possibility of a new neighbour, and Sergeant Ames is as confused as ever by the inimitable Tina Van Eyck.
A Globe and Mail bestseller and #1 Bestselling New Release in Canada
“Whishaw nicely captures the rhythms and dynamics of small-town life while maintaining suspense. Maisie Dobbs and Phryne Fisher fans will be pleased.” —Publishers Weekly
“There are days when nothing suits a reader like a good old-fashioned classic cozy with a puzzle plot, a country setting and some nice slight characters. When that urge strikes, Iona Whishaw’s delightful B.C. series featuring Lane Winslow and, now, husband, Inspector Darling of the King’s Cove constabulary, are just the ticket. . . A really good book in a terrific series.” —Globe and Mail
“A winsome cozy set in the Kootenays in 1947 . . . it’s the perfect series for fans of Miss Fisher and Maisie Dobbs.” —Zoomer Magazine
“Is Lethal Lesson a cozy? If it is then call it an award-winning cozy with a razor edge that reveals bodies under the snow and grim events that force a young woman to run again from a life she so desperately needs to escape.” —Don Graves, Hamilton Observer
“All of Whishaw’s novels have a modern sensibility, a sense of justice, and a mixture of romance and community angst. Their handling of the texture of the late 1940s’ time period feels precise and carefully researched.” —Castlegar News
“I absolutely love the modern sensibility of these novels, of their feminism, sense of justice, their anti-racism, their progressiveness, which somehow never seems out of place in a tiny BC hamlet in 1948. . . But it’s never preachy or pedantic, and Whishaw continues to use her murder mysteries to explore the limitations on women’s lives and freedom that were contemporary to the period, and which are not yet so far away in the rear view mirror.” —Kerry Clare, author of Mitzi Bytes and Waiting for a Star to Fall
“Iona Whishaw’s writing is worthy of taking its place alongside the works of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. This deftly crafted and briskly paced murder mystery vividly evokes the atmosphere of a small community gripped by the sudden disappearance of two schoolteachers in the snows of a Canadian winter.” —Fiona Valpy, bestselling author of The Dressmaker’s Gift
“This series is truly a favorite of mine and always a delight . . . Highly recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction/mystery, strong female leads (think Maisie Dobbs!), and mysteries that dive into not just the whodunit but the why? And really, anyone who just enjoys a good mystery.” —Hidden Staircase blog
“As is Whishaw’s literary style, this is a complicated narrative that involves a plethora of local idiosyncratic side characters, unexpected scenarios, as well as the odd, completely unanticipated twist. Her use of dialogue is superb . . . she keeps the reader involved in the action while sprinkling emerging events . . . [and] pleasingly, not all threads are neatly brought together. The main conundrum is indeed realistically resolved, but many sidebars are left to linger and percolate.” —Historical Novel Society
