With Brtian paralysed by snow, the weirdly timely publication of Jim Kelly's DEATH WORE WHITE is striking. Kelly had the unusual notion of writing something on the use of snow in classic crime, and if is has a place in the modern crime novel.
Aside from the almost spooky coincidence, the falling snow flakes prompts this larger question - why is the whole crime genre, and especially its so-called Golden Age, so fond of snow? And it's just not crime buffs who like the stuff. Just look at 'Miss Smila's Feeling for Snow', 'Snow Falling on Cedars', 'Girl With a Dragon Tattoo' or any number of recent classics. Why do they return so often to the white stuff? It's not the picture postcard beauty - although it helps. And it's not just the nostalgic feel, although that helps too.
The central place of snow in the crime literature goes back to the idea of the "locked room mystery" - the core element of the modern crime story, which can be traced to Edgar Allan Poe's famous 1841 short story - The Murders In The Rue Morgue. We all know the basic rules of the locked-room mystery - the crime where the killer leaves no trace. A dead body, a locked room, no way in, no way out. But beyond this rather narrow idea of the locked-room lies a bigger idea - that of the impossible crime.
And one other big question comes to mind: as global warming turns the classic snow scene into little more than a nostalgic oddity, can crime writers go on conjuring up such frosty plots?
Jim Kelly has written his own variation on the same theme. In 'Death Wore White' he conjures up a line of eight cars, stranded on a country road. Once the police arrive they find the driver in the leading vehicle dead at the wheel - a chisel driven through his eye. But there's no footsteps around the car. How did the killer get in ? How did the killer get out ? Snow gives a VIRTUAL locked-room. Short of the missing ceiling, the snow provides transparent impenetrable walls.
And of course, every time a real-live person sets out across this landscape they are forced to leave those comforting footsteps behind. It's a world where everyone leaves a trail, and in a world fascinated with forensic science, and the certainties it seems to promise, this is deeply reassuring.
For DI Peter Shaw and DS George Valentine it's a creepy start of an infuriating investigation: the crime scene is melting and the body count is on the rise.
DEATH WORE WHITE by Jim Kelly is published by Penguin Books
