In a satisfying departure from her numerous dark Scottish mysteries, Val McDermid (Queen Macbeth) offers Winter: The Story of a Season, a charming memoir of sorts to treasure for all seasons. Her supple prose, engaging regional descriptions, and thought-provoking observations, tinged with sparkling humor, follow festivals from Halloween through New Year's Day. McDermid renders her reflections on her cherished Fife childhood and Edinburgh adulthood with nostalgic affection.
The enticing four-part collection of 20 brief reminiscences begins with the tradition of guising, a "forerunner of the anaemic trick or treat," with improvised costumes (nothing store-bought) and gutting neep ("rock-hard" Swedish turnips). Next comes November's celebration of "gunpowder, treason and plot" surrounding Guy Fawkes's failed 1605 coup against the English Parliament. Captivating Christmas "lightfests" at Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden "hold the darkness at bay." McDermid bemoans the loss of traditional town square Hogmanay activities, replaced with "expensive corporate and heavily restricted events." Making soup sustains her, like "central heating for the soul," building out her recipes with "a good rummage" through whatever she has on hand.
With January, McDermid's literary imagination benefits from the perfect climate for a crime writer of "devious deeds done in the dark." It's also an ideal time "to snuggle indoors without guilt; to curl up on the sofa with a good book... or a wee whisky to hand." Readers can savor the same pleasures, along with Philip Harris's 15 delightful images that complement McDermid's already descriptive and winsome text--birds, barren woodlands, the "ghost ship" of Queensferry Crossing, a steaming pot of soup, youthful ice skaters. --Robert Allen Papinchak, freelance book critic