Snowbound suspense: 5 thrillers set during snowstorms

A glorious snowfall can conjure up warm thoughts of hot cocoa, kids tossing snowballs and building forts, the holidays, a still, peaceful white landscape. But it can also create a darker, dangerous flipside. Getting trapped, losing power, being exposed to the elements. I’ve always loved thrillers that take advantage of a bad snowstorm–of bringing cold, heartless motivations to frozen landscapes.

In my latest novel, The Cold Read, I take full advantage of the chilling nature of a snowy locale by setting my book at a remote, abandoned ski resort, where the elements quickly take on a very sinister nature.

Here are a few other books that do the same. If you want to shiver your way through a good mystery without actually having to worry about frostbite, you’ll want to pick up these other snowbound stories as we head into the winter season.

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Ruth Ware, One by One

This novel, involving a group of co-workers setting off on a retreat, would be a nightmare on its own even without the thriller elements. Traveling with coworkers! Skits! Presentations! The terror! To make things much, much worse, however, this work retreat involves an avalanche, power loss, and the little matter of the group disappearing and dying off.

The characters make this book the tense, twisty thriller it is. It’s an enjoyable puzzle to piece together as you read.

Allie Reynolds, Shiver

A group of competitive snowboarding friends reunite in the French alps at the ski resort where their frenemy mysteriously disappeared some years before. But weird things immediately start to happen. Their cell phones disappear and they are cut off from the rest of the world when the  cable cars stop working, leaving them stranded on a dangerous mountain. Tensions abound as past secrets and suspicions start to emerge.

Told in dual timelines, the book does a great job of showing how fierce friendships can be both invigorating and toxic.

Martin Edwards, Miss Winter in the Library With a Knife

Six writers and editors are invited to an exclusive Christmas retreat to play a murder mystery game. The setting is remote, the weather is bad, and the guests all have had recent terrible luck in their careers and relationships.

In a classic Golden Age style with an homage to Clue, the novel sets the reader as another player in the game, complete with a “clue finder” guide and puzzles to solve. When the game becomes reality and people start getting bumped off, all bets are off and the competitive guests have to start playing as though their lives depended on it–because they do.

Carol Goodman, The Night Visitors

When a woman and her son arrive on a bus during a snowstorm in New York, escaping an abusive situation, service worker Mattie breaks the rules of her job and brings them to her own house instead of the local shelter. This mistake proves costly as the storm intensifies, an intruder begins to stalk them, and strange things begin happening.

Tightly plotted and claustrophobic, I had a tough time reading this one late into the evening.

Matt Iden, The Winter Over

The Winter Over follows a small group of Antarctic research scientists setting up for the winter over at Shackleton South Pole Research Facility in Antarctica. They are supposed to be tested physically and psychologically to prepare for the conditions and the loneliness–nine weeks of complete isolation, constant darkness, and extreme cold.

As Cass, a newbie to the job, starts to settle in to her work, a suspicious death of one of the crew makes her wonder if someone on the team might’ve snapped. Trapped at base with a killer and nowhere to go, the team doesn’t know who to trust. What will kill them first? The extreme conditions or the humans on base?

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