The first book in a new crime series, Winter at the Door introduces Lizzie Snow, a Boston cop turned police chief, now ensconced in the remote town of Bearkill in northern Maine’s Aroostook County, which runs right up against the Canadian border. Bearkill barely manages the necessities with a supermarket, Laundromat, luncheonette and corner bar appropriately named Area 51.

It’s not her first choice for a working venue, but the “grim little town miles from anywhere” may offer a clue to the whereabouts of Lizzie’s young niece, Nicki, who went missing after her mother’s death eight years before. The child’s body was never found, and Lizzie desperately hopes there is substance to a slim lead involving a youngster who’s living somewhere in this area.

Besides adjusting to a new location and searching Maine’s dark corners on her personal quest, Lizzie is confounded by a spate of mysterious crimes and a killer who lurks just out of reach. The deaths are one reason Lizzie’s smart and steady new boss, Sheriff Cody Chevrier, is counting on her fresh eyes to separate what looks like accident from premeditated murder. There are many puzzles to decipher in Winter at the Door, and the primary one is why so many local ex-cops are suddenly meeting an unexpected death.

Another conundrum involves Lizzie’s former lover and the cause of her recent heartbreak, state police detective Dylan Hudson. Dylan is the source of the information on Nicki, but how much substance is there to his timely lead?

This twisted, gritty tale is full of wintry touches, but for all of its atmosphere it takes a surprisingly superficial approach, even with a potentially fascinating cast of characters. Many scenes sacrifice depth and nuance for a screenplay veneer, and Dylan lacks the panache to be a devastatingly attractive lover. Still, the snow-muffled setting works well, leading readers into the heart of a thankless and dangerous darkness, one that will continue to lure as the series progresses.

The eccentric and purposeful Lady Lavinia Truelove enters her stables early in the morning, unseen by her peers, where she plans to subdue and ride the erratic, untamable Lucifer. She’ll show her husband that she’s a horsewoman to be reckoned with, as well as two sights higher than the woman she thinks may be capturing her husband’s eye.

Moments later, she is dead, neck broken, lying under the horse’s massive hooves. Horrified stable boys rush to sound the alarm.

So begins Enter Pale Death, a 12th installment in Brit author Barbara Cleverly’s Joe Sandilands crime series set in the era between the momentous World Wars. The Scotland Yard assistant commissioner is flummoxed by a death that is surely one of “misadventure” (the stable boys are scarified witnesses), yet seems to have been death by intent, as it becomes apparent that several people stand to benefit from the lady’s sudden demise—husband James included.

Sandilands travels from London to the scene of the crime deep in rural Suffolk on the North Sea coast and makes the acquaintance of Adam Hunnyton, local police chief and character extraordinaire, who wants to use Sandilands’ eyes for a second look at the crime—and various Truelove family members. Sandilands soon discovers that Dorcas, the woman he hopes to marry, was a guest at the Truelove estate on the eve of Lavinia’s death, and to complicate matters, Dorcas is the very woman that James Truelove may have his eye on.  

Cleverly delivers a witty, atmospheric and well-conceived slice of British crime, an old-fashioned country brew that includes a wood haunted by the Wild Green Man of Britain’s pagan past and a treasure trove of equine lore that traces back to an ancient brotherhood of horsemen. One entrancing and colorful encounter takes place in a field as the urbanized Sandilands encounters a herd of prancing, curious horses, and his store of equine knowledge stands him in excellent stead.

At times Cleverly can be a bit too nonchalant and chatty, detracting from the story’s atmosphere, but her marvelous descriptions of country lore and an evocative Suffolk countryside setting provide a taste of all things British and may send curious readers scurrying to the library to learn more about the ancient traditions in this most ancient of lands.

Forty Days without Shadow, by French journalist Olivier Truc, is set in the remote Lapland of northern Norway, where reindeer are the only livelihood for indigenous Sami herders who brave the dark, Arctic winters to keep vigil over their animals, and where the old ways—even ritualized murder—can still hold sway.

Truc’s chilling debut won 15 international awards after its publication in 2012, and it is now available in English, thanks to a compelling translation by Louise Rogers Lalaurie. Translations sometimes have an awkward feel to them at the outset of a book, but as readers continue on, the unusual sentence structure develops a cadence of its own and becomes an integral part of the narrative. Lalaurie’s translation creates a chilling mood that mimics the haunting green glimmer of the Northern Lights.

Senior Sami police officer Klemet Nango and his freshman deputy, Nina Nansen, investigate two crimes: the theft of a unique Sami drum once used by the region’s shamans, whose rituals can be traced back to the area’s oldest mythology; and the brutal murder of an old reindeer herder. The detective team’s radically different backgrounds and approaches to the murder scene, in a setting full of omens and danger, make for a fascinating juxtaposition of old and new ways. Old practices clash with conservative Lutheran groups and geologists who are out to exploit the region’s vast mineral reserves for plunder and profit.

The book’s title describes a seminal moment in far northern Lapland, as 40 days without any sunlight to cast a shadow slowly give way to a magical, goose pimple-raising sequence when the community gathers to watch the sun appear once more over the horizon: “Everyone fixed their gaze on the horizon. The magnificent gleam intensified, reflecting more and more brightly. . . . Now, a bright, trembling halo of light blurred the point on the horizon at which everyone was gazing. . . . The sun had kept its word.”

A dramatic snowbound setting mixes with unexpected touches of humor to make this book one of the most riveting of the season.

In this, the 11th of Christopher Fowler’s superb Peculiar Crimes Unit mysteries, it’s clearer than ever that the real hero of the series is London herself. If you’ve never visited the city, you could ask for no better education—or pressing invitation—than the one you’ll receive by reading the entire series. Fowler not only tells delightfully lurid tales of both famous and well-hidden landmarks, but also provides clear warnings about neighborhoods you should avoid (after all, these are murder mysteries).

Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart finds detectives Arthur Bryant and John May tackling the bizarre case of a reanimated corpse seen rising out of its grave in a forgotten corner of a Bloomsbury public garden. Both high-school punks and high financiers are implicated, along with morticians, necromancers and medical-school dropouts.

Apart from the elusive murderer(s?), the villain of the piece is the bureaucratic nightmare of the London Constabulary, personified by a barely-human being with the implausible name of Orion Banks, who . . . but no, I shall not give that away.

Bryant embodies all the peculiarity of Fowler’s narrative gifts. There is great goodness and camaraderie at the heart of the story. It’s so much bleeding fun.

This article was originally published in the December 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.