Snow Kill

by Tom Eslick

Paramedic Chad Duquette and his half-brother, Damon Pill, respond to a hunter shot call one snowy Sunday morning in November in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The routine call turns deadly when... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1885173180
• ISBN13: 9781885173188
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Write Way Publishing
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Impressive read

This is a great Amateur sleuth mystery. Cozy readers should be warned that it's a bit on the strong side with language and loves scenes, but the mystery is so impressive that I found myself reading it straight through. I love the cliffhangers and shockers that Tom Eslick leaves at the end of some of the chapters; they are great attention grabbers. Chad Duquette, a volunteer rescuer and our protagonist, along with his step-brother Damon, a volunteer fire fighter, are called out to what they assume is a hunting accident when Mr. Chambers calls for help after his friend Rodriguez has been shot. Once they reach the shooting victim, a handgun is found instead of a hunting rifle, and suddenly all hell breaks loose with someone ending up as the next victim. Chad Duquette has a sad and haunting past that he deals with throughout the mystery. With a little help from his therapist, Chad finds himself analyzing the recent shooting case as well as his past. Expect some surprises and impressive twists as you read "Snow Kill."

Suspense in New Hampshire

Tom Eslick obviously knows and loves New Hampshire. He lives there and his two books, both stand-alones, are set in the state. This one features Chad Duquette, a former medic in Viet Nam. Still healing from the murder of his wife and unborn child, he serves the small, rural community in which he grew up as a volunteer EMT, responding to emergency calls for help. He lives in his grandfather's former home, visits a psychiatrist regularly, and is beginning a relationship with Rachel, a teacher at a local boarding school. He also keeps an eye on his step-brother, Damon, who is developmentally delayed socially, but clever about fixing things.As the title indicates, winter is setting in, and that means hunting season. Chad is called to attend to a hunter who has been shot. He suspects something is out of the ordinary when he finds a 9 mm handgun in the hunter's hand. As he is attending to the victim, the friend who summoned help is shot dead nearby. This is just the beginning of a variety of strange occurrences that seem unrelated, but of course, they are all elements of a very diabolical and well-constructed story. Several characters are found to share a similar tattoo, a pentagram on the hip. When evidence seems to suggest that Chad is doing the killing, he becomes determined to find the truth. This was an exciting, quick-reading book. Although many of the circumstances seemed a bit outlandish, I willingly suspended disbelief to see how it would all come out. The language is crisp, clear and quite natural. I recommend Snow Kill as a refreshing summer read.

Snow Kill

Snow Kill is well-crafted and suspenseful; in fact, I was compelled to read it in one sitting. Eslick has created a realistic, sympathetic protagonist, and his secondary characters are both memorable and believable; they certainly reflect their setting well. Eslick has the New Hampshire idiom down pat, and his descriptions of the landscape are vivid and accurate. Best of all, the novel is fast-paced and exciting. I recommend it highly-- this is a first-rate read.

A different but well written mystery

Following two brutal and dehumanizing tours of Viet Nam, Chad Duquette returns home to the woman of his dreams. They marry and she becomes pregnant, but is killed during a convenience store robbery. Chad's shaky mental state totally collapses and he flees to his grandfather's New Hampshire farm. For the next few years, Chad struggles to pull himself together. Eventually, Chad seems to have recovered his equilibrium and even begins dating. He works as a volunteer emergency medical technician and watches over his stepbrother, an idiot savant who needs constant supervision.While on an EMT call, Chad is attacked while trying to save the life of a hunter. He and the hunter make it to the hospital, but the assailants killed the man's buddy. The corpse vanishes and several days later another hunter is murdered under suspicious circumstances. The victim's body is found at about the same time that Chad's stepbrother disappears. As Chad searches for his sibling, the police begin to suspect the veteran of being the killer. When law enforcement officials try to arrest him, Chad goes on the run, determined to locate his missing relative and expose the real perpetrator.Tom Eslick is a sharp descriptive writer who paints a picturesque panorama of the great outdoors. Readers will fully understand and empathize with the lead protagonist, a person whose life is filled with tragedy. SNOW KILL captures the essence of the independent spirit heard often mentioned by the media every four years about residents of New Hampshire. The plot takes readers down a curving road filled with detours that will leave the audience wondering what will happen next on their roller coaster ride. Mr. Eslick provides a winning regional mystery.Harriet Klausner