When Winter Returns

When Winter Returns
By Kathryn Miller Haines
HarperCollins, 2010. 333 pgs. Mystery

Rosie Winter and her best friend, Jayne, have just returned from their USO stint in the South Pacific in the fall of 1943. They head upstate to visit the family of Jayne's recently deceased fiance, but the man in the family's photographs is a stranger to them both. As Rosie searches for the truth behid his identity - and a way to help heal Jayne's broken heart - she faces an unpleasant homecoming of her own: her ex, Jack Castlegate, is back in Manhattan and engaged to a gorgeous WAC private, Rosie's friend Al is living on the streets with no one to help him, and Rosie and Jayne can't seem to get any work.

This is the fourth book of the Rosie Winter Mysteries, and this series just seems to get better and better. Rosie's own personal life is more closely woven with this plot, and the story in general has more depth than any of the series so far. One minor flaw is that this book isn't quite as smoking with the usual wit and verve of Rosie's sassy personality - the narration is a bit more subdued than books past. But I think this is more of a reflection of what is happening in the book than any fault of the author, and I still loved it.

The first book in this series is The War Against Miss Winter.

BHG