2009 Shortlist for Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel (Crime Fiction)

The ice was clear that year, clear as rain right down to the bottom....

A bitter divorce drives Sara Wolesley to abandon her comfortable urban life, and with her two young daughters in tow, she takes up residence in a rundown cottage on a frozen lake in Quebec. The rashness of this action soon becomes apparent when the pipes in the cottage freeze. With no money, no job prospects, and now no water, Sara is close to a breakdown when she discovers the body of a child trapped under the ice.

Her name is Oralee Pelletier and she has been missing for five months.

As Detective Sergeant Rompré of the MRC des Collines Police launches his investigation, Sara is drawn into the lives of the mother of the child who has a secret, her former friend who has all the answers, and that of a quiet solitary man with a past no one wants to talk about.

When there is a second suspicious death and nothing adds up, Sara doesn't know who can be trusted in the seemingly idyllic village of St. Jude.

Recommended for readers of women's crime fiction in the style of Louise Penny, Ruth Rendell and P.D. James.

"A mixture of literature, mystery, and romance. The story soars thanks to Doolittle's elegant and poetic language..." ~ Montreal Review of Books