The Storm Murders: A Thriller

By John Farrow

City of Ice, John Farrow's first book in his acclaimed Emile Cinq-Mars series, which has been hailed by Booklist as "one of the best series in crime fiction," has been published in over 17 countries. Now with The Storm Murders, the series continues.

On the day after a massive blizzard, two policemen are called to an isolated farm house sitting all by itself in the middle of a pristine snow-blanketed field. Inside the lonely abode are two dead people. But there are no tracks in the snow leading either to the house or away. What happened here? Is this a murder/suicide case? Or will it turn into something much more sinister?

John Farrow is the pen name of Trevor Ferguson, a Canadian writer who has been named Canada's best novelist in both Books in Canada and the Toronto Star. This is the first of a trilogy he is writing for us called The Storm Murders trilogy. Each book features Emile Cinq-Mars, the Hercule Poirot of Canada, and extreme weather conditions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781466873834

John Farrow

JOHN FARROW is the pen name of Trevor Ferguson, who has written nine novels and four plays and has been named Canada’s best novelist in both Books in Canada and the Toronto Star. Under the name John Farrow, he has written two other novels featuring Émile Cinq-Mars, City of Ice and Ice Lake. He was raised in Montreal and lives in Hudson, Quebec.

Book preview

PART 1

ONE

Sudden on the windshield, the sunlight was blinding. As the squad car emerged from a canyon formed by towering dense spruce onto a broad plateau of farmland, the officers inside the vehicle snapped down their visors. Wild gusts sculpted fields of fresh powder into rhythmic waves overnight, but as the storm passed the wind ceased. No trace of movement disturbed the distant view to the horizon, a seamless ocean of white lying perfectly still as though arrested at the moment of a tidal shift. Plows made a pass, yet the road remained slick with a glimmer of snow. The two cops fumbled for their sunglasses, neither for effect nor from any sense of police propriety, but the reflection off snow on a clear day under a cold snap in February created a brilliance more luminous than any summer’s noon.

The man riding shotgun scanned the horizon. He daydreamed of distant destinations, all south. His driver, silent also, remained intent on the soft shoulders as he slowed for a turn and steered up a long drive last cleared before the storm’s advent. Uniformly white, the road proved difficult to distinguish from its ditches. No tire tracks guided them to the farmhouse a half-mile in from the county highway.

A pale green two-story cottage ascended into view, its peaked roof adorned by gables. Nary a cloud in sight. White furnace smoke slipped from the chimney into a cerulean sky. Window frames were outlined in black trim, in contrast to the frilly lace curtains inside. The color of rust, the front door stood out.

A serene, innate peacefulness personified the dwelling.

The car pulled up behind a battered blue pickup that, half-buried by snow, was not readily identifiable. The men experienced the rapt peace of the place and braced themselves to feel a bone-brutal cold the second they bullied the doors open.

The road to hell, postulated the uniformed officer in the passenger seat, is paved—well, why don’t you tell me with what?

Asphalt? The driver raised his voice above the blast of the car’s heater.

Dude, it’s a real serious question.

The rookie sighed, then obliged his partner. Good intentions. He knew he’d be wrong. Even when he was right his partner would change the premise of the question to make sure that he was wrong. His way of trying to be a useful instructor.

In the real world, the more senior cop remarked, maybe. In our world—

Our world’s not real? The rookie shut the motor off. Dead silence.

Hyperreal, the veteran said.

What’s that supposed to mean? He left the keys in the ignition.

More real than real. Beyond reality.

So it’s not good intentions, in our world, that buys you a ticket to hell?

"Good intentions will fuck a cop over, that’s true, but it’s not the worst thing. Dude, the worst thing is hesitations. In our world, the road to hell is paved with a long series of gee whiz, let-me-think-about-this-for-a-second hesitations."

So we should get out now, the junior cop concluded. He was a smartass.

Thirty-one, the elder of the two was a five-year vet. The driver was twenty-three and confident, not only a rookie but as keen as a razor and possessed of sharpened ideals to match. The men stood in the frigid air. The car doors remained ajar, as if frozen in place by the shock of the cold.

Nothing moved. Even the smoke seemed still, painted onto this pristine canvas. Usually they worked in the countryside, but both cops were city boys who commuted to the job. The depth of this unrelenting stillness unnerved them.

Fucking quiet, the older one whispered, his voice scratchy in the dry air.

Fucking cold, the younger remarked. He could deal with the quiet.

Their breath was visible. Against the side of the barn stood a tractor, the steel blade of its plow gleaming in the sunlight. The reflection blinked on their dark green glasses.

Yeah, the senior officer concurred, and tacked on a grunt.

They slammed their doors simultaneously, a joint kahjunk! that wandered across the waves of snow and echoed in the distance against a stand of hardwood. The two men glanced around, but really there wasn’t much to see. The yard and the small barn’s exterior of bare wood appeared well-kempt. A farm without animals in winter. No place at all. Not a place where anything ever happened.

Except, they’d received a call.

The youngest took three steps toward the house.

Where’re you going? his partner demanded, coming around the car.

Where do you think? To the house. I’m trying to not hesitate.

Fifteen feet from the first stair the senior officer pressed his hand briefly against his partner’s near elbow, stopping him. Ron, he cautioned.

What?

Look first.

At what?

The snow.

Swirls lay undisturbed up the stairs and across the windblown porch.

No one had come out that day. No one had gone in.

Remember that for your report. Ours are the only footprints visible.

You’re planning to make detective? Ron chided him.

It’s in the cards, kid. Why not? Bound to happen someday.

Kid. The younger man repeated that one word as a scoff.

What?

I don’t think you’re old enough to call me kid.

Up the steps, the more junior officer rapped on the door.

No buzzer. No doorknocker.

They waited.

So you believe in fate, crap like that? needled the rookie.

Don’t talk your shit to me, Ron.

It’s in the cards, you said. The cards. That means fate.

No answer from inside. Ron the rookie knocked again. That pervasive silence.

Figures, the veteran officer decided. He crossed the porch to look in the window and put both hands on the glass to shield his eyes from the sunlight’s glare. Then he took his sunglasses off and tried again. Still difficult to see inside, to go from brightness into what’s dim. He stood there, awhile, searching.

What do you see?

Fuck’s sake, the senior cop said quietly, with some urgency. He unsnapped his holster cover and withdrew his pistol. Call it in.

And say what? Ron tapped the transmitter on his collar that relayed through the car’s two-way radio and requested a reply.

We’re entering. Let them know. Possible medical. Ask them to stand by.

Ron called it in, unbuckled his holster, and slipped his own weapon into his palm. He adjusted the unfamiliar weight in his hand.

For now, the steel felt warmer than the air. Strange, that.

The door was locked. A dead bolt. Smart, out here alone, and yet unusual for a farmhouse. Most folks never bothered. The older of the two raised his right boot and kicked the door hard. Then again. Nothing much happened. He’d never kicked down a door before. He began ramming it with his body, putting his shoulder into the task until the old wood started to splinter. Then another big kick.

They stumbled inside, weapons raised.

This way.

The two officers crept into the living room. Ron removed his sunglasses, wishing he was privy to whatever his partner had seen, so he’d have a clue what to expect. He never imagined that in his first year on the job, in only his third month with this detachment, merely his second career posting, he’d be stepping around a hefty dog-eared brown sofa to view a man lying dead on a farmhouse floor. Relatively fresh-looking blood pooled out from the hefty man’s skull. He lay faceup staring at the ceiling, his mouth and eyelids agape. Even as his partner crept closer to the man and knelt down Ron knew that he was dead.

Had to be. All that blood. That vacant stare.

The stillness. The thrum of the furnace came on, the sound a blessing. A little white noise to fill the hollows in his head that felt cavernous now, as if his brain was being stretched wide. Ron consciously tightened his sphincter before the whole of his body loosened and disassembled. Talk about hyperreal, all right.

His partner continued checking around the corpse. He shouldn’t be touching it, but he knew that. Marc? Speaking quietly. What’re you doing?

I can’t see his hands.

The dead man looked armless. But he wasn’t.

Don’t touch him.

He touched him. He’s tied up. His wrists.

What?

His arms lay behind his back. More blood swam under him.

Marc rose from his crouch. Tied up and shot. I think he’s missing a fucking finger. This is not just a murder. It’s a fucking assassination. Call it in.

Ron did so. Glad for the task, and to hear back that help was on the way.

He must’ve come and gone by the back door, in and out.

Who? What?

The killer, Ron. He must’ve come and gone by the back way. You saw the road, the snow. No footprints. Nobody’s moved. Let’s check it out. Stay alert.

Alert?

As an answer, Marc raised his pistol, aimed at the ceiling. Ron caught on and did the same. He’d never drawn his weapon on duty before. All he’d ever pulled out on the job was a booklet of tickets to nail a speeder.

The downstairs level was a warren, a contagion of cramped rooms and closets and a bare-bones, yet charming kitchen, so it took a few seconds to find the route to the rear of the house to manage a clear view outside. They scanned the yard, the field beyond and the gently rolling hills. Not even a coyote track. A few distant fences, but nothing disturbed the beauty of the storm’s overnight snowfall.

The furnace cut off, and they were returned to dead silence again.

Check the side, Marc ordered. The rookie crossed the room and took in the view from the window there. Not so much as a snowshoe print. If Ski-Doo trails existed out there, and they probably did, they lay buried.

Nothing, Ron reported. The killer took off during the storm. Or before it.

The guy’s not been dead long enough. Marc was whispering. He’s warm. His blood—

Without knowing the reason for it, the younger cop also lowered his voice to a hush. How’s that possible?

Marc’s voice was scarcely audible. The killer’s still in the house.

The rookie wanted to say, What? but swallowed the word. He got it. Adrenaline jumped through him even as he stood stock-still. He snapped out of it. He moved next to his partner. This time, he didn’t have to be told to keep his pistol raised.

Downstairs rooms first. One at a time.

We don’t wait for backup? Whispering still.

With a killer lurking around maybe? You want to sit still, wait to get shot?

Ron was not sure. Neither choice seemed grand. The options might be equally dangerous, but he didn’t think that that was the point. Weren’t they supposed to wait for backup?

Here’s the thing, Marc determined. That guy in the living room? He doesn’t live alone. Somebody’s life could be in danger here. Where’s his wife?

Maybe she killed him.

Maybe. Probably. Who else? Or—she’s a victim, too. We don’t know.

Photographs of her smiled up at them from the coffee table. A middle-aged, matronly sort. Not your average assassin. Not one to tie up her husband before she shot him. Ron nodded. Yes. This is why he became a cop. He was onside with this. They proceeded to the nearest room, a kind of home office, small, where he waited at the doorway as Marc went in and checked the large closet. Empty.

Marc returned to the doorway. Tall. An angular face. If he was an actor, he’d more likely be cast as an academic, or as an accountant, than as a cop. He’d never find work as an actor trying to play a cop. Clear, he whispered.

Do we announce? Ron asked. The more powerful of the two, a solidness was reflected in his squared-off cheekbones and chin. We should announce.

Marc didn’t like to be corrected by a protégé. Okay. Whatever. Whoever’s here already knows we’re here. To maintain his status, he said, You announce.

Scared, Ron shouted out, Police! Sûreté du Québec! This is the police! Identify yourself! In French only. He repeated, Police! which worked in either language.

That silence.

Happy now? Marc asked him. Ron considered it an unwarranted comment and didn’t forgive his partner’s sarcasm. He felt that he didn’t really like this guy anymore but that was no big concern. They were bound together. In fear, and, as it happened, in mutual trust.

Next was a sewing room, which doubled perhaps as a guest bedroom. Ron slipped in, his heart thumping through his brains. He came back out and muttered, Clear. The word caught in his throat. He hoped his high anxiety wasn’t showing.

But it was okay. Marc looked frightened, too. Fear, Ron reminded himself, was never the point. What counts is not how scared you are or how brave you claim to be or even how calm you are. All that matters is what you do.

More small rooms. Definitely, a woman lived there with a man. The furnace came on again, giving them a start. With the front door smashed, the inrush of cold air was causing it to frequently cycle on. They glanced at one another. The furnace. So there’s a basement. Of course. And an upstairs. They were caught between the two. The door down was in the kitchen. Marc made the decision and Ron went down the stairs partway and swept his eyes around. Washing machine and dryer. A work bench. A radial-arm saw. Tools. Various ladders. Farm and garden implements, shovels, rakes, and a pitchfork. The furnace. The oil tank. A hot-water heater. Storage boxes on a rack. Kitty litter. Everything was up off the floor as if the space flooded on occasion. A sump pump. A tidy basement. But no one with a gun, and no dead people with their blood on the floor. No hiding places. He went back up.

They checked more small rooms.

A powder room. A TV room. A large hall closet. What looked like a music room. Now that was a luxury.

Time to go upstairs.

On the balls of their feet they moved slowly, but the old wood underfoot announced their trespass. Creaking.

A heating pipe banged and Ron shouted back, Police! SQ! Identify yourself!

Shut up, for Christ’s sake, hissed Marc.

Ron really didn’t like the guy. Why did he ever tell his girlfriend that his partner was okay, a tad full of himself maybe? He was a whole lot more than full of himself. He let him go first. He’d rather not take a bullet for him if he could help it.

Fucking procedure, attested Ron, mumbling really. You got to identify yourself before you go shooting anybody. That’s so basic.

Marc decided that he might as well bellow, too. Missus? Are you here? Lady?

Furnace thrum, a clanging radiator, and under all that a gawking silence.

They made it to the top of the stairs and their legs and breathing felt as though they’d just climbed Everest. Marc signaled his partner to check the room on their left. Ron preferred not to do so but he was given no choice. The door stood open. He flashed his head in the doorway, pulled it back instantly, then processed what he saw in that moment. Nothing. He looked in again and held his gaze. He entered as he’d been taught to do, weight and pistol forward. Recruits were taught to do it that way. If shot, the officer falls forward, which might allow him to get off a few rounds of his own. Maybe save his life that way, at least in theory. Yeah, right. Ron figured it really meant that he’d hit the floor face-first. Bust his nose. Mess up his corpse for the coffin. No one in the room, no one in the closet, no sign of any disturbance. The ceilings were low and the slope of the roofline evident. The room occupied half the upper floor, a bedroom, yet without the look of a master suite. It appeared to be infrequently used. Pillowcases did not adorn the pillows.

He held his breath and checked under the bed. No one. No shooter, no second vic.

Ron came back out.

Marc led the way down the hall. A bathroom was nearly opposite the top of the stairs. He crossed to the far side of the door. Ron glanced in. On his second look, he could see more of the room by checking the mirror on the face of the medicine cabinet. Then he went in and confirmed that the space was empty. He mouthed the word, Secure, and followed Marc farther along. The door to the last room on the floor was also open. Marc’s turn. He glanced in and jerked his head back. He looked at Ron, which was not procedure. He took a breath. Whispered, Woman on the floor. We got another one.

Suicide?

How the fuck do I know? Looks like it anyway.

He risked a longer glance in, not looking at the woman so much but at the far corners, at the edge of the bed, searching for anything that might move. Not even a cat. A farmhouse, and not even a cat. He went in weapon raised and checked behind the door, in the open closet, over the far side of the bed. He signaled Ron to check under the bed. Ron wanted to puke. He’d been looking at the woman. On his knees, he lifted up the bed ruffle and checked that space. A few small storage items, but no killer.

Ron rose, relieved that his head hadn’t been blown off. Marc entered the room first but left him the scariest task. Now they both looked at the woman. A dismal view, more so because she was naked. The indignity. Legs akimbo. Blood smudged. Marc had seen dead people on the job mangled in their cars. Gruesome enough. He went closer. He touched her. He was not supposed to do that. Fuck, he said, but in a way that sounded amazed. Still breathing.

Really? No way. So much blood, from her head wound and also her hand. Blood from the hand had splashed around.

Call it in.

Ron did so. He reported that one victim was alive and requested an ambulance. He was told that one was on the way, that it had been on the way for a while, just in case.

In case of what? he wondered.

Then an impression gnawing at him struck home. Marc, he said.

What?

There’s no gun. No weapon.

They looked around. If this was a suicide then she shot herself through the back of the head without a weapon. The dead man downstairs had his hands tied behind his back. He didn’t do it. And no footprints left the house.

Under his breath, Marc said aloud what Ron already knew. Still here.

Yet they’d searched everywhere.

They stuck close to each other near the door, their backs against the wall for additional protection, listening.

Wait for backup? Ron suggested. He was afraid he might piss himself. He felt that he was all right overall, he could handle this, but he might piss himself.

Yeah. We wait for backup. Marc didn’t know what else to do. He looked at the woman. He was pretty sure that the man downstairs had a finger cut off. That was certainly true for the woman.

Marc glanced out to the hallway, just to check there. When reinforcements arrived he wouldn’t let them see him like this, cowering. He’d tell them that they stayed in the room to protect the woman and because waiting for backup was fucking procedure. Fuck this shit. He wanted to be a detective, he joined to become a detective, not some uniform risking his life in some godforsaken farmhouse in what was not only the middle of nowhere but the worthless center of the middle of nowhere in the freezing fucking cold. But shit it was exciting, too. A double murder! Unless the woman makes it, but still, a double shooting on his watch and the killer might still be around if he hadn’t left by helicopter or by Santa’s bright red sleigh.

Marc glanced out the door again to make sure that no one was creeping up on them. He didn’t see a thing and drew a deeper breath to release his tension and before he got to fully exhale he dropped to the floor, landing awkwardly, and toppled over. Ron saw him fall and the shock of the blast turned his blood to glue. He didn’t think don’t hesitate, although he wanted to think that way, but he couldn’t think anything and yet he hardly hesitated at all and bent his arm around the doorjamb with his pistol ready to fire and his hand shaking and his heart bursting out the top of his head and his eyeballs out his skull and yet he had no one to shoot at. He only had walls in his line of sight and the shooter, he figured, must be behind the wall at the top of the stairs and he aimed at the spot waiting for the shooter to show himself and yet he never did and he yelled into his collar transmitter, breathless, Officer down! Officer down! because he couldn’t remember the code, he’d never needed to remember that code, then he yelled like a crazy man, Police! Come out— and although no one was there he never discerned that fact as he heard a sound, a small sound, like a shuffling, and then his brain imploded and he fell upon his partner, and as he bled his blood commingled with his partner’s. Nor was he aware that all there was before him now and under him and around him was that silence, that perfect stillness which he experienced initially as an unfathomable dread, but now became the perfect silence of a swift death.

Silence throughout the countryside, interrupted for those moments, ensued for a spell, then broke again. Across the snowy fields, echoing off the hardwoods, came the bark of yet another gunshot, so the quiet that returned, contrasted by the shot, felt immense, sustained, eternal, as brilliant as the sunshine, until there occurred a rising bedlam, a raring noise, distant at first then drawing closer, as sirens raced to that snowbound cottage, police and ambulance and more police, and something in the wailing, something in the plaintiveness over the waves of fresh snow on the serene fields, suggested that their speed was insufficient, that their urgency, both provoked and necessary, was too little and could only arrive too late.

TWO

Retirement was not serving former Sergeant-Detective Émile Cinq-Mars as well as desired. He had much to do, especially with his wife’s horse business, and a variety of interests engaged his attention. So he did not suffer from any lack of activity and contrary to his prior speculations hardly missed the job at all. But he was wickedly unlucky. He fell, not off a horse, which he might have expected and carried with a certain honor—what horseman did not brave more than one nasty fall?—but he tripped over a bucket and tumbled into a horse who, startled, gave a kick, catching him right below the heart. The near-miss might have been his salvation although, for about six seconds, Cinq-Mars thought he was dead, then for the next six hours wished that he was. Notwithstanding the evidence of his survival, the broken ribs took their own sweet time to heal, a painful and lethargic process.

His first stroke of bad luck proved not to be his last.

Amid the fanfare concerning his retirement, during which time he was feted and anointed by colleagues both respected and despised, pumped for knowledge and contacts, equally praised and excoriated in the press so that a public debate ensued over whether citizens ought to be dancing in the streets or wearing sackcloth—somewhere within that repetitive munificence of sentiment and gift-giving he was handed the de rigueur gold watch. Initially, Cinq-Mars felt disrespected that a superior would stoop to such a banal gift when a halfhearted handshake would do, and irritate him less, but then he checked the watch. Hey. A nice watch. He liked it. He had never possessed an object of such obvious value before and grudgingly made peace with the symbolism. Time’s up. Or, All you got left is time now. Or, About time you got the hell out of here. Or even, We couldn’t think of anything else but it’s the thought that counts, right? He was the recipient of retirement cards that humorously underscored such sentiments. But he liked the watch and enjoyed putting it on in the morning, at least until the day that he strapped it onto his wrist and discovered that for all its value and beauty and artful weight it offered back the wrong hour.

Still ticking, but 247 minutes behind.

To effect the repair under warranty required that he return it to the jeweler where the watch was initially purchased. Which is when he discovered that it was worth over two grand. Police department money wasn’t tapped to purchase the timepiece, not at that price, the cash raised instead among colleagues, from among those both favored and despised. Indeed, from among those who exhorted him to stay and from those who were counting down the minutes, perhaps using the pricy watch, to his departure. Cinq-Mars felt a pang. Of affection. Of loss. For the old camaraderie. Even for the old daily frictions. In returning to retrieve the repaired Rolex he took note that this was only the fourth time in his life that he found himself inside an upscale jewelry boutique as a paying customer rather than as an officer of the law. Once to buy a ring for a girlfriend as a young man, once to choose an engagement ring and wedding bands for himself and his future wife—she went back to pick them up—once to return his broken watch and now, a fourth time, to pick it up. On his first two trips he wasn’t retired, and went in on his lunch break, wearing a regulation pistol. So bringing the watch in, and now to pick it up, constituted his only times in a jewelry store unarmed, which struck him as both ironic and unfortunate given that he was interrupting a robbery-in-progress.

He could try a well-aimed punch to the thief’s prominent jaw, except that his ribs remained sore from the horse kick and the punch undoubtedly would hurt him more. Besides, he’d not swung at anybody in decades and who knew if he could still put much behind the blow. And the guy was showing off his gun, so he might be shot for his trouble, which his wife, for one, would not appreciate. After all, it was only a bloody watch. Albeit a Rolex. So he tried something else. He stood in the doorway and didn’t let the crook out without first having a word.

Hi, there, he said.

You old fuck, get out of my way, sneered the thief, a belligerent, unwary lad.

Old. Cinq-Mars hoped the guy didn’t recognize him and therefore wasn’t submitting a comment on his retirement. Standing in the doorway of the slightly subterranean shop, a step up from the miscreant, his six-foot-three-inch frame towered above the imp who stood at a chubby five-seven. He could stare down the immensity of his impressive nose and assume that that would have an intimidating effect upon the man nervously, if defiantly, gazing up at him.

How’re you doing? he asked. From his pocket he withdrew a stick of gum—the miscreant flinched—casually unwrapped it, folded the stick in half to more easily drop it into his mouth, and did so. My name’s Émile Cinq-Mars. What’s yours?

Although unwilling to tell him, the jewel thief no longer insisted that he get out of his way. Cinq-Mars noticed that the man’s glance seemed to trip over his nose. His massive honker was always his particular identifier, both because it deserved to be, but also because the city’s cartoonists loved drawing his beak with comic exaggeration. In any case, the thief was undergoing a change of heart and seemed willing to talk.

Heard you retired, I heard.

It’s no secret. Is that why you’re here? You think it’s safe to steal now?

No, but—

But what?

"I got a gun. Like you can see. Do you? No, you’re retired. You done your part. So maybe you should get out of my way and go play bocce or something."

He liked this jewel thief. His argument revealed a certain innate consideration for another person. Maybe I should. Get out of your way, at least, but maybe you might want to consider a few things first. Such as, friendly advice, if you shoot me with that thing—I mean, how many cops do you know just by their names? I never showed you my shield, because you’re right, I don’t have one, I’m retired. But shoot me? Oh man. Do you have any idea the grief that falls on your head for that? Brought on by cops. By prosecutors and judges. By the man in the street, even. Your own family might not forgive you. With so many cops in jail now, you might not get a break on the inside. Don’t count on it. Cop killer? You want that on your sheet, do you?

The thief’s posture and expression indicated that he didn’t, not really. But he came up with an idea. I could just wound you, like. Like maybe in the leg.

Are you telling me that I won’t find your mug shot in a stack of jewel-thief portraits? Sure I will. No, if you’re going to shoot me, you want me dead.

Cinq-Mars won that argument as well.

So, you know, this is like none of your business, the thief maintained, as if to appeal to his sense of fairness, if not of justice.

That’s where you’re wrong. I know it’s unfortunate, this is bad luck for you, but I saw you put my watch in your bag. It’s in for repairs. I’m here to pick it up. I could tell you that it has sentimental value, but that would be a lie. Still. It’s my watch. Not yours.

Barely into his thirties, the man’s hair was noticeably thinning. As an adolescent he’d had bad skin and coming of age he did some time, Cinq-Mars could tell, just by the look of his face, the pallor and texture. Twin gold rings graced an earlobe—enough of an identifier to get him back into prison for a future crime, if the guy proved smart enough to abandon this heist.

The owner of the store, bent behind a counter, seemed baffled by the exchange, but acquiesced to allowing it to play out.

So. Why don’t I just give you back your watch then? We forget about it.

A relatively generous offer. Cinq-Mars weighed it quickly. At my age? I’m not going to start taking bribes now. Not after all these years. Just leave everything behind and we’ll let this one pass.

All of it? You want me to give back—

You might be holding the bag, friend, but the contents don’t belong to you.

The crook seemed to consider his circumstances. Then what?

Then walk out of here.

I get to walk?

"Run, even. That’s up to you. I don’t have a gun. Or a badge. I can’t arrest you. Put the bag down and none of this ever happened. If you don’t put it down—do you think I don’t have connections? Do you think

Reviews for The Storm Murders

[datrappert · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After the magnum opus called River City, it took Farrow (Trevor Ferguson) a long time to resume his Emile Cinq-Mars series, but it was worth the wait. Now retired, Cinq-Mars finds himself and his wife in their gravest danger yet as he is pulled into the investigation of the murder of a couple—and two investigating police officers—on a farm not far from his own in Quebec. I will say up front that the plot is about as far-fetched as they come. You’ll guess part of it early on, and as it begins to unfold, you’ll just have to suspend disbelief and enjoy the interactions between Cinq-Mars and the other characters. His old partner, Bill Mathers, makes a few key appearances, but the most intense part of the story, until the melodramatic ending, takes place in New Orleans. Farrow is unusually specific for a writer, setting much of the important action in the Hilton Garden Inn—and Hilton probably hasn’t awarded him any bonus points as a result. Hilton fares much better than the FBI, however, but you’ll just have to see that for yourself. What makes the book so compelling, as in the previous Cinq-Mars stories, is the characters and their relationships. At the center of The Storm Murders is the relationship between Cinq-Mars and his much younger, American wife, Sandra. She is thinking of leaving him. Their relationship as a couple is fascinating, and Sandra becomes much more of a full character here than in the previous books. We root for Cinq-Mars to keep her, because she is the anchor he so desperately needs. But he also needs his work. As he thinks in one passage, prior to his retirement, he got to use his brain every day to solve crimes, then come home to his farm and use his hands and body to take care of his horses. Now, his brain has nothing to do except try to solve—fruitlessly—English crossword puzzles. So when the opportunity to help out on a murder case arises, and when the invitation comes directly from an FBI agent, the decision is easy, and even Sandra supports it. If they only knew….Highly recommended, and apparently, despite having a definite conclusion, not the end of the story, as two more books in “The Storm Murders Trilogy” follow.

[vicki_weisfeld · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This memorable book thoroughly and compassionately deconstructs the complex and intense relationship of a son and his troubled mother in “one of the most honest, moving American memoirs in years,” said Michael Schaub for NPR. Russo’s mother Jean suffered from “nerves” throughout her lifetime. She was a demanding, needy person, not unaware of her own flaws and shortcomings, and intermittently troubled by them. Russo, an only child, was her rock. She was also a pretty, lively woman, who went to extraordinary lengths to maintain the illusion she was living an independent life.Only after Jean’s death did Russo learn enough about obsessive-compulsive disorder to fit the facts of her behavior to the characteristics of this syndrome, making a post hoc layman’s diagnosis. And only then did he come to the heartbreaking realization that his way of helping her might not have been the help she needed. She may have been a frustrating parent, but she just couldn’t help it. The writing here is smooth as silk and contains great deal of humor. The well-rounded picture of the complex and loving mother-son relationship that Russo creates makes the reader more keenly feel the guilt Russo has suffered, despite his heroic efforts to respond to her plea, It’s you I need. (Meanwhile, in my opinion, Russo’s wife Barbara is a candidate for sainthood.)He also gives a vivid picture of his home town of Gloversville, New York—a back-on-its-heels former leather-manufacturing town, whose tanneries poisoned workers and the watershed alike (he won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Empire Falls, another post-industrial sad-sack of a town). Russo’s mother Jean couldn’t wait to get out of there, except when she couldn’t wait to get back. This cycle had a depressing regularity that continued for decades. These are people well worth knowing and a relationship that’s understood far better than I understand what in the world went on with my own parents. Tiny bit jealous of Russo’s ability—the intellectual and emotional honesty and the depth of insight—to pull this one off so well.

[judithdcollins · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A special thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. THE STORM MURDERS by John Farrow is a suspenseful crime thriller mixed with tons of wit. Loving this so called “retired” Emile Cinq-Mars, Montreal police detective, who cannot seem to stay in the senior zone, or away from trouble, even in the US. Emile is called out of retirement as the FBI wants someone on the ground in Canada after a murder of a married couple at an isolated Quebec farmhouse, during a severe storm. When several murders began occurring around the US, in the aftermath of a natural disaster, the FBI wants to bump up the investigation especially after the last one when two cops on the scene were gunned down. A hurricane—Katrina in New Orleans, a tornado in Alabama, a North Dakota flood, and California, a small earthquake with mild property damage. In the aftermath, a killer strikes. So is this individual traveling to disaster zones to perpetuate his crimes? So possibly the killer got impatient waiting for a disaster, and settled for a local storm, which could mean he was nearby—a Quebecois?Cinq-Mars does not suffer from any lack of activity and contrary to his prior speculations he hardly missed his job. His wife did not want him to get killed on the job, so she was the guiding principal behind his retirement. The former Montreal city detective weighed more than his wife’s concerns about his imminent and violent death before choosing to retire. Emile, a religious man and his younger wife, Sandra who has a horse business, decide to mix a little business with pleasure and take off to New Orleans, as a background investigation to see what all the cases may tell him or if they are connected in some way. After all it is just a consult, so how dangerous could it be? (this part was so much fun) They rarely traveled, with the horses, unless it was a week in New Hampshire where her mother resided or horse fairs and competitions or an occasional trip to Florida and the islands. However, now New Orleans, where they hoped to find the city in revival mode after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, but really did not know what to expect and hopefully would have some downtime to enjoy one another for some casual fun.The murderers seem to be methodical and precise. Calculated, and more professional than normal. The victims seem to have died early and were spared any prolonged physical or psychological agony. Each victim loses his or her finger, and the rings on it, but in Alabama the medical examiner declared positively that the fingers were removed postmortem. So they did not suffer. From Louisiana, to Connecticut depended on the ME. How are these victims targeted? A serial killer? A copy cat? Does the killer hate cops as is he trying to outsmart them?However, when the couple arrive in NOLA, they no more than check in to their hotel, The Hilton Garden Inn, when strange things begin happening, from robbery, a break-in, an abduction, and then demands. The abduction occurred when the local authorities took him out drinking and on the town--he knows all too well about investigations being corrupt. Where is his wife? With all this action, Emile is back in the game and is questioning the Big Easy’s finest, the FBI, and the hotel staff about his wife’s whereabouts. When Cinq-Mars hears the words, Danziger Bridge from the kidnappers, he is feeling anything but southern hospitality, and someone wants him out of this state.With the shock of their misadventure lingering, they could not wait to return home, to some peace, even with more snow than when they left. He hopes he is off the case, and not interested in any more drama, as after all he is retired and does not need the garbage; until he decides he may want to after all. It may be too good to pass up, when the next of the storm murders occur in Alabama, and back to Quebec where the intensity and danger heats up, focused on Emile and Sandra. This was my first book by Canadian writer, John Farrow (pen name of Trevor Ferguson), and really enjoyed his well-developed characters, especially Cinq-Mars, and Sandra (and her mouth); loved the author’s style with a perfect mix of wit, corruption, money laundering, mystery, crime, and suspense. Look forward to reading more of this series! Note: A new trilogy of John Farrow crime novels, The Storm Murders, has been sold to Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press in New York and will appear under the Minotaur imprint. The first comes out in May, 2015, under the same name, "The Storm Murders." The second. "Seven Days Dead" follows in 2016, and the third, "The Talisman Quarry," will come out in the same year or in 2017. More crime novels are to follow the trilogy