Book Review: Dead of Wynter by Spencer Seidel

Title: Dead of Wynter
Author: Spencer Seidel
Publisher: PublishingWorks
Publication Date: May 24, 2011
Paperback: 272 pages
ISBN: 978-1935557692
Genre: Fiction, Suspense

From the back of the book:

“Dolly, it’s your mother.” Dolly. Jackie Ruth Wynter had called Alice that for years. The conversation that followed led her right back to the place she had run from for years. Her twin brother, younger by just a minute or so, had been fading, transforming into an image of their drunken, narrow-eyed father. Now her father was dead, and her brother, Chris, missing.

Alice resigns herself to return, helping her mother and the local police with the mystery surrounding the crime. But there are some family secrets her mother would sooner take to the grave than reveal.

Reacquainting with her past brings fresh pain and new friendships as she struggles with who to trust with the details of her father’s murder and brother’s disappearance. As the authorities come closer to solving the mystery of the men in her family, she begins to realize her past life as Alice Wynter is the missing part of the puzzle. But who is searching out the former Alice?

Spencer Seidel tells a familiar tale of a reluctant hometown girl while plot twists take us deep into the bone-chilling cold of the dark winter in Maine’s lake country. The sinister mysteries of the Wynters will capture the reader’s attention well past when the fire has gone out..

My Review:

Dead of Wynter is the gripping debut novel by Spencer Seidel who takes readers on an intricately woven and suspenseful journey. Alice Wynter Dunn residing in New Jersey with her husband, Gerald, learns of her father’s death, and returns to her hometown of Redding, Maine to offer support to her mother, Jackie Ruth. Alice returns begrudgingly however since Redding was a place that served as the backdrop for many memories that she would rather forget as a child growing up in an abusive family with an alcoholic father. The apparent suicide of Alice’s father turns out to be a homicide and the focus of the investigation includes her twin brother Chris who was not only last seen with their father, but who, as readers learn through flashbacks to 1984, had been hiding his past acts with their cousin, Ray, a relation that this family could have definitely done without. Seidel, with vivid, yet realistic character descriptions transports readers to the story’s setting and crafts a compelling tale of murder, family secrets, deception, and revenge. Masterfully written, Seidel shows through powerful prose how some family secrets can be deadly, and readers will be kept guessing until the last pages of Dead of Wynter. I would recommend Dead of Wynter to anyone who enjoys suspense thrillers and I look forward to reading Seidel’s next novel.

To learn more about author Spencer Seidel, please visit his website or on Twitter.

I received a complimentary ARC of Dead of Wynter by Spencer Seidel from Meryl L. Moss Media Relations, Inc. to offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.

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