TWO HOURS BEFORE WINTER

Past violently meets present in this terrifying thriller anchored in Indigenous folklore.

The soul of author Scott’s debut novel, set in the Canadian Northwest in the 1970s, is Sgt. Nick Harden. The American expat and Vietnam War veteran hasn’t been right since a serial killer murdered his teenage daughter, Lee Ann. Her death led to Nick’s separation from his wife, Dorna. Also, he has been largely missing in action from command of the Blakeslee Royal Canadian Mounted Police substation, now run by Constable Erik Ellsworth, who is saddled with incompetent legacy hire Constable Anson. Several developments change Nick’s trajectory. First, one night on patrol, Nick picks up Tia, a mysterious teen who encourages him to consider imperceptible supernatural beings. Next, a double homicide doesn’t fit the pattern of the earlier murders. Finally, a deranged Dorna returns with a dangerous scheme to use herself as bait to lure her daughter’s killer. Nick and Erik catch a break when they meet Susie, an Indigenous woman who escaped from the serial killer and has clues to share. Erik gets closer to solving the double homicide, but puts himself in great danger in the process, and Nick’s troubles mount after Dorna disappears to put her plan in motion. Finally, the two Mounties reunite to search for Dorna, learning to embrace the paranormal in the process. In this volume, Scott echoes Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Fortunately, Nick and Susie are able to observe the malevolent spirits of the dark Earth that wreak chaos on the Blakeslee region, while others, like Dorna and Erik, soon come to believe that such spirits exist. The villains here aren’t born bad but have their souls commandeered by evil entities. One flaw of this work is a tendency to introduce potentially interesting characters—only to kill them off a few chapters later. Also, the novel leaves several loose threads; an incomplete ending for a potent adventure.

Good versus evil square off in this lengthy but effective morality tale.