WHEN THE FLOOD FALLS

A former Royal Canadian Mounted Police corporal tackles a mystery that may help her gather together the remnants of her shattered life.

Now that she’s quit her job and the husband she thinks tried to kill her, Lacey McCrae works as a gofer for another former Mountie who’s setting up security for a new museum near Bragg Creek, a small town close to Calgary. Nearly broke, she gets lucky when her former college roommate, realtor Dee Phillips, president of the museum’s building committee, invites her to stay in her home nestled in the wooded foothills of the Rocky Mountains, a stone’s throw from mansions owned by wealthy hockey fans. Ever since Dee was nearly run down and one of her dogs killed by a hockey player driving carelessly, she’s been slow to recover and thinks she’s being stalked. Projecting her own problems onto her friend, Lacey wonders if the stalker is Dee’s ex-husband, Neil. Then Dee’s nearly run down again by three hockey players driving a car belonging to her neighbor, much-married millionaire Jake Wyman, and Lacey’s almost crushed to death by a malfunctioning picture rack in the museum’s vault. Lacey gets off on the wrong foot with Dee’s closest neighbors, Terry and Jan, when she assumes that Jan is a drug addict only to learn that she has an unusual disease which often leaves her unable to function. When Dee is run down once more and this time badly hurt, Jan and Rob, the museum manager, offer Lacey help in the search for Dee’s stalker. Jarrad Fitch, who originally ran Dee into a ditch, is the protégé of former hockey great Mick Hardy, whose wife he’s been romantically linked with. He’s only one of the people who might have it in for Dee, but he moves to the top of the list when he vanishes.

Beneath the many mysteries of Barnard’s character-driven debut are enduring questions about the complexities of life and the choices people make.