Crime Fiction Alphabet: In the Shadow of the Glacier by Vicki Delany

People were of two minds about Reginald ("Call me Reg") Montgomery. They either hated him or thought he was the best thing to happen to this town in years.

Title: In the Shadow of the Glacier
Author: Vicki Delany
ISBN: 9781590584484
Publisher: Poisoned pen Press/2007
Pages: 302

Molly Smith, a constable in the small town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, stumbles upon the body of Reginald Montgomery while on beat duty. Reg had arrived into the small town only a few months back with his wife Ellie and had made as many friends as enemies. He was there to built a Grisly bear resort. A Vietnam war dodger has left land and money to be used for building a garden to honour the war dodgers. Reg was one the leading opponent of the garden and his is found murdered.

Molly Smith is assigned the duty of assisting veteran Detective Sergeant John Winters, who too is new to the town and not very happy about his fresh, eager-faced young assistant. Mainly for the reason that her mother is foremost in wishing for the garden to come up and is dead against the grisly resort. The town is divided as old timers wish for the memorial and youngsters know once that comes up, tourism would take a dip. Even Molly's father is opposed to the plan of building the garden.

A playing dirty TV personality arrives in town and he gets outside agitators supporting both sides into it and it turns really dirty. Meanwhile Molly's best friend is being stalked and ends up injured one night, for which Molly blames herself.

With many suspects for the murder, which includes Molly's mother, Winters and Smith look out for all kinds of clues and secrets to solve it. Also they have to nab a small time biker thief, who has stolen Molly's bike, that too from the police station.

This is the first in the Molly Smith series. Set in the Canadian wilderness, it takes us through beautiful mountainous town which was a very peaceful place before the murder, its crime rate being very low. That murder changes everything. Vicki Delany does manage to hold interest. Although there are many suspects, actual murderer is only caught in the end. It is a mystery one can breeze through fairly easily. No nail biting suspense but it doesn't fall flat either. For mystery lovers, I say go for it.