I've had this book for years, I still haven't, unfortunately, got to it, so this is a placeholder review to reduce my shelf for my own sanity, but will replace this if I ever get to the book

Two things attracted me about this book: the post-war setting and that it mainly takes place in winter (don't know why, but I love winter stories!). Also, I was intrigued by the fact that the bodies which turned up are dead for several years - this promised a very interesting and unusual investigation! But it didn't stay all cold case, as soon after some fresh bodies followed suit - piling almost as fast as the heavy snow falling in Framley. Newly assigned DI Winterman is in up to his shins, both with the case and the snow, which effectively slows down his effort to sort things out.

The characters were introduced thoroughly, each with his own past and problems, making it easy to instantly relate to them as real people of flesh and blood. The plot was well constructed, but maybe too much so. I guess that's my only main objection with the book: I felt my mind wandering off a couple of times when the story slowed down too much, though I never had the feeling I missed anything afterwards. The ending seemed delayed, as I already knew what was coming, but had to plow through some more IMHO unnecessary events to get there, and the maybe intended surprise rather felt like an already awaited but late finish line.

Overall, I very much enjoyed reading this original story and getting to know the introduced characters. The book works very well as an advertising pilot for a new series, with still room for more.

Fesselnd und spannend geschriebene Geschichte - die lässt einen nicht nur mit Gänsehaut erschauern, die man in diesem winterkalten Buch gratis präsentiert bekommt.

Winterman is a historical British police procedural, taking place in the farms and fen country just out of Ely, shortly after the end of WWII with flashbacks to 1940. We have stalwart protagonists with hearts in the right place and high morals, and we have beaten down bad guys. We have children, present and past, used as pawns and women who lost much in the war but managed to make their way through. And we have a police presence working without sufficient personnel and funds, with private and public systems rotting from the inside out. It is late winter 1947 and food is still scarce and rationed, clothing, vehicles, rubbers, gasoline, too. Life.

DI Winterman is wounded in heart and soul and brushed off to the hinterlands to keep him quiet and out of sight. He finds himself replacing a DI who has been gone for over two years in a tiny shop comprised of DC Hoxton with eight years on the force, and DC Marsh with only one year's experience. Mrs. Sheringham is the stalwart ruler of the shop, and she is assisted by a part-time clerk, widowed Mary Griffiths Ford. They have been issued a stout bicycle and an older Wolseley and Mrs. Sheringham might have a fine typewriter but nothing else is available to assist in their policing duties. The general consensus is that the office will eventually be incorporated with that of a larger community so there is no feeling of security by any of the crew. The weather does not help. Day after day, week after week it snows. Oh, and they have a body. That of a nine, maybe a ten-year-old girl, partially preserved in the fen, a body dead 5 or 10 years that turns up in an old abandoned house and is discovered by the retired Reverend Joseph Fisher whom local gossip fashions into a very bad guy and a drunk who was responsible for the death of his wife and young daughter back during the war.

And then the bodies begin to pile up. DC Marsh goes missing. Eventually, help arrives under the direction of Detective Superintendent Spooner of the Cambridge Constabulary. PC Bryan Brain is the only police presence in the current hot spot, Framley, and the weather has him isolated. Then Winterman and crew are snowed-in in Framley. And the death toll continues to mount...

Winterman is an excellent novel, one that keeps you guessing, and rooting for the good guys. But just who are the good guys?

I received a free electronic copy of this novel on February 25, 2019, from Netgalley, Alex Walters, and Bloodhound Books in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

Although I've never read anything by Alex Walters before, I enjoyed Winterman, the first in a proposed new series.

The opening sequence, set in 1940, establishes a bit of the backstory. The novel then moves to the period shortly after the war.

In 1947, having offended some of his superiors, DI Ivan Winterman is sent to the Fen District in East Anglia. In postwar Britain, there is a shortage of everything: manpower, food, fuel for transportation, coal for heating.

Effectively exiled , Winterman finds himself in an understaffed police station in a small village. The area has previously been known for mostly small time offenses, and Winterman expects little involvement with serious crime.

Shortly before Winterman's arrival, however, the body of a child, dead for years and preserved by burial in the Fens, is discovered. There is no record of a child having gone missing in any of the neighboring villages and the body is unidentified. The situation is curious, but does not seem urgent...

Until the body of a second child in similar condition shows up. As a blizzard sets in, bringing the coldest winter conditions on record, the body of a third child appears. Someone has unearthed the bodies and displayed them.

If the bodies of the three children were not enough in this remote area in the midst of a blizzard, two grown men are murdered and a constable disappears. In short order, Winterman finds himself dealing with a truly freakish situation--three old murders, two recent murders, a shortage of backup, weather that is further isolating, characters who may or may not be trustworthy, and secrets that someone wants exposed. Who were the children and why is there no record of them anywhere?

The setting is visual and cold! The isolation of the villages and the austerity of postwar Britain make the weather conditions a crucial part of the narrative.

NetGalley/Bloodhound Books
Crime/Mystery/Historical. Feb. 26, 2019. Print length: 470 pages.

5 stars

DI Ivan Winterman returns home to his recently deceased mother's house in East Anglia. It is fortutious that he has been transferred here – to the back of beyond as it were. He is alone in the world for his wife was badly injured and his son killed during the Blitz. He meets his office manager Mrs. Sheringham and his two young DC's Hoxton and Marsh. Hoxton is open, friendly and talkative while Marsh is more quiet and has a tendency to be a deep thinker.

A report of a child's body comes in. The three respond, driving in a blinding snowstorm. Dr. Pyke also responds. The child is perhaps nine or ten and the little girl has been dead for some years. There was an earlier report of another little girl's body found not far away.

Another body is found. This time it is the body of a man named Fisher. He is a “retired” reverened who had seriously taken to drink. He was the one who found the first body in a cabin on his way home from the pub one night.Then another body of a child. It has obviously been moved from wherever it was originally left as were the other children.

Before long, bodies are dropping all over the place, both old and new. Winterman tries to get help from headquarters, but the story is an old one, “We'll see what we can do,” which is no help at all. Eventurally, Winterman and his team get some help from headquarters. Things begin to happen very fast.

The disappearance of a constable, more murders and attempted murders, an exciting car chase and a flood later, the story comes to its conclusion.

This is an extremely well written and plotted novel. The story follows the painstaking police investigation during the blizzard of 1947 which was the coldest in Britain in recorded history. The reader learns a great deal about DI Ivan Winterman (but not smuch that it detracted frim the story), and the privations the English had to suffer in the post-war years. There was a shortage of coal, so not everyone had sufficient heat, food was still being rationed so getting adequate nutrition was difficult, people were still on the move, houses were abandoned and so on. I liked Winterman and the other main characters in the book. Ivan is an interesting man and I am anxious to find out more about what makes him tick. I want to know more about PC Bryan Brain and Winterman and Mary's relationship. Oh, I do so hope there is a sequel.

I want to thank NetGalley and Bloodhound Books for forwarding to me a copy of this remarkable book for me to read, enjoy and review.

Winterman by Alex Walters

Did I enjoy this book? Definitely! I mean, who stays up till 3am reading to find out what happens in a murder mystery if they are NOT enjoying it? Maybe enjoy is not the correct term, though. I was so thoroughly engrossed in what was happening that I couldn’t stop reading...even though I was tired enough to think about going to bed...I just couldn’t.

This book takes place soon after WWII ends and is set in England. D.I. Ivan Winterman is sent to the back of beyond to a small police department to be in charge. The place he has been sent to once was home and the house he lives in became his after his mother died. As soon as he arrives in town young girls exhumed from the fens start showing up about town and questions arise as to who they are and how they got there. Those older female bodies are soon joined by some freshly murdered male bodies that provide just as many if not more questions. And, that is not the end of the murders that will take place in this novel.

Okay, there are murders but there are also interesting characters to meet, a budding romance, nightmares, cover ups, backstories, threads to unravel, mysteries to solve, evil to unveil and oh so much more. This book was so well plotted and precisely crafted that I, who often read the end of books before I read the middle, still was surprised more than once and often unsure who to and not to trust.

Did I enjoy this book? Without a doubt
Do I hope this book is the beginning of a new series? Definitely
Will I read more books by this author? Of course!

I really want to find out what will happen next in Ivan’s life!

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloodhound Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

The story is set in 1940’s Britain, after the war had ended but food, fuel shortages and rationing are still part of everyday life.

The small village of Framley is covered by snow, when a drunken ex-clergyman comes across the body of a child...left for someone to find...

DI Waterman is posted to the small local Police Station and along with his colleagues, Horton, Marsh and the ever eager PC Brain they begin the investigation, only for more bodies to be found and even murder.

The deep snow hampers them considerably but they carry on in this twisty thriller, with murder, blackmail and secrets. Alex Walter’s wonderfully descriptive and moody writing brings chills that having nothing to do with the weather.....written in the vein of classic Josephine Tey, there are marvellous characters and I have to say the indomitable Mrs Sherringham is a favourite...

I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns and the ingenious reveal....I never saw it coming. I hope to read more of DI Winterman and Mary.


I would like to thank the Author/the Publishers/NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book for free in exchange for a fair and honest review

I would like to thank Netgalley and Bloodhound Books for an advance copy of Winterman, a police procedural set in the Fenland in 1947.

DI Ivan Winterman is not happy to be sent to the backwaters, seeing it as a punishment for rocking the boat at headquarters. His backwater is, however, not so quiet when the mummified body of a young girl is found in the ruins of a cottage. When more corpses turn up and someone is murdered Winterman and his small team find themselves struggling to cope.

I thoroughly enjoyed Winterman which is a very complete read with a bit of everything. It is a relatively long novel with quite a slow pace investigatively speaking but it covers a lot of ground building inexorably to a revelation studded, if inconclusive, ending. There are some tense moments, several action scenes, a romance for Winterman and plenty of characters whose actions demand suspicion which all lead me to the description of complete. I love the way Mr Walters builds his novel, fact by fact, blending the past with the present while leaving the reader baffled until the reveals. I found the ending very interesting in that there is a certain amount of justice but few arrests. For a reader it may seem a bit messy but given the historical setting and the circumstances it seems very realistic to me and might actually be my favourite part of the whole novel.

I think the historical detail is mostly accurate, but, even if it isn’t, it paints a very convincing picture of the bleak postwar years where comfort was an aspiration rather than a reality for most people. Throw in the coldest winter on record and you get a constabulary not only struggling for resources but to get to the crime scenes to investigate. There is little joy in the novel.

The characterisation in the novel is excellent but only to be expected as the author has given himself the space to be expansive. Winterman is the archetypal detective, smart, dedicated, resistant to direct orders he doesn’t agree with, a touch idealistic about catching wrongdoers and with an interesting backstory. The motivations of all the other characters come under scrutiny at some point in the novel so the reader never feels on sure ground and it provides plenty of food for thought.

Winterman is a good read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

Winterman is the first book that I have read by Alex Walters and it definitely won't be the last.

The story is set in East Anglia in 1947 and stars DI Ivan Winterman who has recently been appointed to a small police station.

The dead bodies of children start appearing but there are no clues as to their identity and then a retired vicar is found murdered

The story moves along at a pace with a number of twists and turns as you would hope for in a murder mystery.

The writing is excellent & this book is definitely recommended

Winterman, the first novel in a proposed new series featuring DI Ivan Winterman, is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Oh yes, now that's what I'm talking about. There is plenty included in this beautifully crafted thriller to keep even the most seasoned crime reader entertained and, just as importantly, guessing. This made a very long, lonely night of insomnia pass ever so quickly, and once I'd started there was no chance I was going to be able to sleep without finishing it, even if I could've. One of the aspects I loved the most was the time period, setting and backdrop - 1947, East Anglia, when the country is trying to get back on its feet after the end of the Second World War - all which brought an atmosphere of unease to proceedings adding to the suspense.

This is a serial killer thriller that takes place in one of the coldest, harshest winters on record making the investigation into the recently discovered mummified remains of three children a struggle for all involved, and there are some breathtaking descriptions of the savage weather encompassing the area's residents. The characterisation is well executed leading you to really care for the characters, but, of course, Ivan is the star of the show; I thought he was an adept and tenacious investigator, and I sure hope it becomes a series so we can see more of him. The author is apparently waiting to determine the reception the book receives in order to decide whether it is worth turning this into a series. I am definitely not ready to say goodbye to Ivan yet.

Don't you just love those books that are a breeze to read with plenty of thrills and twisty surprises? This writer should be on EVERY crime fiction fans radar. Period.

Many thanks to Bloodhound Books for an ARC.

Another of my favourite authors. I knew that once I had read the blurb for this book I just had to read it.
This book got my heart racing and tapping my kindle like Morse code. I could not put this book down and for all the right reasons. I was sat on the edge of my seat most of the time while reading this book.
Thanks to this gripping murder mystery I was reading late into the night. A murder mystery but so much more. I have read everything this author has written so far, but this book will stay with me in my thoughts long after I have finished the last page. This author is at the top of their game. I loved this book and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
I would like to thank the author, Bloodhound Books and Netgalley for the advanced copy in return for giving an honest review.