Detective writers in large, sparsely populated regions face a special problem; how do you get your sophisticated urban detectives to attractively remote murder settings in time to do a decent investigation? Peters has solved this by bestowing the Sydney Criminal Investigation Bureau with an imaginary helicopter flying squad. Faced with a murder in the Australian Alps, the four intrepid detectives whizz off to the ski slopes in time to find the body stiffening. The local force is glad to hand over the job and even provides an aide-de-camp -- the ski-savvy Constable Wilson.
Deceased turns out to be Carl Schmidt, an Austrian ski instructor who was investigating Nazi war criminals on the side. He also favoured whirlwind romances with female students, neighbours and staff, giving Inspector Nichols and his boys an wide selection of motives and suspects. Progress is made by searching the ski resort where Schmidt lived and worked, and interrogating a variety of suspects. These include anozzer ski inztructor viz a funny Cherman accent, and the visiting femme fatale, Judi Francks. A second attempt at murder is made. Lacking the patience of his counterpart Bony, Nichols decides to play stalking horse, and the villain is trapped.
This is a cheerful, blokey production, without much depth and with an obvious villain. My guess is that it was written with television in mind, and lots of attractive young Antipodeans in ski-suits; but if Bazza and Charleen from NIDA ever actually got to buzz their sibilants in front of a camera there's no record of it to be found. Likewise the sequels which the author was obviously planning for. Still, it's done with enough enthusiasm and good humour to be an entertaining read.
But that title - ugh!
Jon.
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