I love anything by John Flanagan. This is book 1 of a new adult series, Jesse Parker. I couldn't put down until I finished. I also purchased book 2, Avalanche Pass (I'm not starting it until after I finish some pressing chores because I'll again be a captive until I finish it.

FROM AMAZON: Ex-Denver police detective Jesse Parker has returned home to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to spend the winter working ski patrol and forgetting about his past. But somewhere out in the snow, a killer has other ideas.

It begins when a skier is found brutally murdered. Local Sheriff Lee Torrens asks her old friend to help out with the investigation, and Jesse finds himself reluctantly dragged back into a world of violence and murder he thought he had left behind.

As Jesse and Lee work together, the memories of what they felt for each other long ago resurface--even as a madman strikes again and again, leaving no clue or trace as to identity or motive. Because for the killer, there are more important things to do than lead the authorities on...

Like choosing who will die next. ( )

Pretty good read. I could have done without the gratuitous sex scenes, personally. But nonetheless, especially since I have traveled to Steamboat Springs myself many times, I found myself turning page after page - er, pressing the "Next page" button on my Kindle - until I got to the end. Until I found out who the Mountain Murderer was. Definitely worth picking up if you're a frequent visitor to Steamboat Springs, and worth looking at if you like a good modern mystery, although I admit it isn't the best example of a mystery novel. Not exactly Sherlock Holmes, but certainly not bad either. ( )

There are never enough new crime fiction writers and/or novels in Australia every year (okay so I'm greedy!), but there are certainly never enough quite as good as STORM PEAK which is John A Flanagan's first crime fiction novel, and I'm certainly cheering for more.

STORM PEAK is set in Colorado in the US, and I hope a reader would be hard-pressed to pick that the setting isn't the author's own, except perhaps for the use of the much beloved u (in spelling). Setting away from the author's home base can sometimes not work - little inaccuracies in dialect and/or terminology can clang badly, but very little seemed not to fit. There's a central male character - Jesse Parker, ex-Denver police detective, returned to civilian life in his hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado after a stake-out goes horribly wrong. Add a central female character - Lee Torrens is the local sheriff, local girl, ex-childhood friend and teenage sweetheart of Jesse. There's still some ongoing sexual and romantic attachment between them. Tentative attempts to re-establish a personal relationship after many years, rapidly goes pear-shaped when Jesse's journalist ex-wife appears in town. His ex-wife is in town because there's a serial killer in Steamboat Springs. Not exactly a series of elements that would immediately make me like the sound of this book. So my sheer enjoyment of it came as somewhat of a surprise for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the setting, the tone and the characters seemed to fit like a hand in a tailor-made glove. Secondly, despite the on-again / off-again / will she / won't he relationship between Jesse and Lee, there's also a feeling of reality about the difficulties of somebody going home, and everyone trying to pick up the pieces after many years. The balance of the relationship versus police work and the killer's activities was good - the personal certainly didn't cloud or overshadow the main thread of the book, and it added some pace and texture at points. The serial killer element worked despite a reasonably predictable motivation, mostly because of the nature of the killings - random targets, often in public places, there's a level of bravado that makes this killer less sick and creepy, more dangerous and edgy.

Jesse's rapidly drafted in as a Deputy Sheriff to help investigate the killings, and there's obviously going to be pressure from on high, with the town relying on tourist traffic, and tourist hang-outs being amongst the killer's preferred stalking locations. The tension at the end of the book is ramped up quickly with a dangerous battle to save the girl, a nice little twist and a follow-up hefty dose of a happy ending. By that stage that didn't make me want to cringe, and overall, this book was extremely entertaining. I hope the publisher's entering STORM PEAK in the Best First Crime Novel category of the Ned Kelly awards this year, it would be very interesting to see how it goes. ( )