Valley of the Lost

Description

In the bucolic mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, a young woman is found dead of an apparent heroin overdose, her baby lying at her side. Only two things are known about the dead woman: her first name is Ashley, and she has a three-month-old baby boy. Who was she? Was this is just a drug deal gone wrong, or is there something more sinist

Having taken early retirement from her job as a systems analyst in the high-pressure financial world, Vicki Delany is settling down to the rural life in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario, where she rarely wears a watch. Unreasonable Doubt is the eighth mystery in her Constable Molly Smith series. Vicki Delany won the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to the crime genre.

"Intertwined subplots, complex characters, and an easy prose style make this a great follow-up to Delany's debut, In the Shadow of the Glacier. For most collections." --Library Journal of Valley of the Lost "At the start of Delany's engaging second mystery to feature Constable Molly Smith (after 2007's In the Shadow of the Glacier), Molly's mother is leaving work one evening at the Trafalgar Women's Support Center in British Columbia when a baby's cry draws her to the nearby woods, where she finds a baby boy, wrapped in a blanketaand the body of a young woman. The victim, presumably the boy's mother, appears to have died from a heroin overdose, but restraint marks on her wrists point to foul play. Molly and her mentor, Sgt. John Winters, comb Trafalgar in an effort to identify the woman. After discovering that her first name was Ashley, the police officers learn that the developer of a controversial new resort being built outside of town had a heated argument with Ashley shortly before she died. Delaney explores the social dynamics of a small mountain community as well as deftly handling the plot's twists and turns as it builds to a pulse-pounding conclusion." -- Publishers Weekly of Valley of the Lost "This second Molly Smith mystery, following In the Shadow of the Glacier (2007), again contrasts the beautiful British Columbia wilderness, vividly described by Delany, with the sober realities of contemporary crime, in this case, murder and drug use. Molly, a dedicated cop determined to succeed in what is primarily a man's profession, makes an engaging lead character." -- Booklist of Valley of the Lost