★★★★☆ Supernatural locked-room mystery

Winter Lost

Patricia Briggs

Winter Lost is the 14th novel in Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series. Mercy Thompson is the series that introduced me to urban fantasy and is still my all-time favorite urban fantasy series.

This one didn't quite feel to me like a typical Mercy Thompson novel. The Mercy Thompson novels are, as a whole, very political -- not that they are about real-world politics, but in the sense that they involve the political machinations and palace intrigues of groups of supernatural creatures, the most important being fae, werewolf packs, and vampire seethes. Mercy, with her werewolf husband Adam Hauptman has, over the course of the the previous 13 novels, become the leader of an alliance of fae, werewolves, and vampires that seeks to ensure security in her local community.

These political threads are present in Winter Lost, but really only in the form of unresolved conflicts from previous novels that continue to hang over Mercy's head in this one. Instead, Winter Lost is a supernatural locked-room mystery. (Well, it's a snowed-in lodge instead of a literal locked room.)

Most science fiction and fantasy novels are mysteries. However, the typical F&SF mysteries, instead of being about a murder or some other crime, are about the more basic question -- what is this world made of, who's in it, and what makes it tick? Although there is a literal crime involved in this one, it is mostly that sort of F&SF mystery.

Winter Lost was slow getting started. Briggs takes her time trapping Mercy and Adam at the lodge. Some of that time is spent elaborating those hold-over political conflicts I mentioned. I could have done with less of this, or at least swifter movement through it. However, once we get to the lodge the plot moves quickly, with a regular stream of new revelations. I ended up enjoying it quite a lot.

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