Death in a Darkening Mist

On a snowy day in December 1946, Lane Winslow—a former British intelligence agent who’s escaped to the rural Canadian community of King’s Cove in pursuit of a tranquil life—is introduced to the local hot springs. While immersed in the therapeutic waters in the springs’ misty caves, she is astonished to overhear nearby patrons speaking Russian. When one of the speakers is found dead in the change room with a bullet to the head, Lane’s linguistic and intelligence experience is of immeasurable value to the local police force in solving the murder.

The investigation points to the Soviet Union, where Stalin’s purges are eliminating enemies, and the reach of Stalin’s agent snakes all the way into a harmless Doukhobor community where a discredited Soviet journalist has been hiding out for six years.

Her complicated relationship with the local police inspector, Darling, is intensified by the perils of the case—and by the discovery of her own father’s death during the war. Haunted by her difficult and distant relationship with her father, she is conscious that her work as a spy during the war is uncomfortably close to his own. She tries to carry on with the case, but her repressed feelings of sorrow for the loss of him find expression at the least opportune time.

Soon, Lane’s hard-won peaceful life is once again threatened. Along with the investigators, she discovers that the assassin—a war hero and trusted member of the community—has been right under their noses the whole time. As they close in on the killer, he kidnaps Lane out of desperation to please his Soviet handler, setting out on a frantic and perilous nighttime journey along treacherous snow-covered roads that lead to his death—and very nearly hers.

Iona Wishaw is a former educator and social worker whose mother and grandfather both worked as spies in wars. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband.