I am pleased to have discovered this book by a local author which is set in the Interlake area of Manitoba. I hope the author has more planned in the series because I'd like to see more of Corporal Roxanne Calloway of the RCMP.

The action starts at a dump for a small town on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg. Cullen Village (possibly Matlock in disguise) has lots of residents in the summer as it is prime cottage country but in the deeps of a Canadian winter only a few people stay. Panda, an accountant, and her female partner, Annie, an artist, live outside of the village so they have to take their garbage to the dump. There are a few other people there including Archie, the dump manager. Archie starts to shove their garbage and the town's garbage collected that morning over the edge of the pile and then goes down to bottom to straighten up the pile. He sees a human limb protruding from a trash bag and calls the rest of them to come look. Panda gets on her phone to call the RCMP but before they get there the others break open another bag and out rolls a severed head. Everyone recognizes it as Stella Magnusson, a local entrepreneur who has developed a sizable music festival on her acreage. Corporal Roxanne Calloway is new to the Major Crimes Unit in Winnipeg but she is detailed to head up the local investigation out of the Fiskar Bay detachment. Constables Izzy McBain and Matt Stavros are assisting and since both of them know the people and area quite well they are useful to fill Roxanne in on local knowledge. Before they can really get started another body turns up under the ice of the lake. It's another local, a man who had a large workshop that may have been where Stella's body was cut up. He was dumped through the hole in his fishing shack out on the ice after he was killed. Although the methods of disposal are quite different it seems probable the murders are linked. Corporal Calloway and her team just have to figure out who had the motive and the opportunity for both.

Much like Louise Penny's Three Pines mysteries there is a lot of visiting back and forth between the locals and lots of good food is served. This is, after all, rural Manitoba; no-one would ever have visitors without offering something to eat. There is also a lot of discussion about the weather which is another preoccupation of Manitobans. For a debut novel I thought Raye Anderson did a great job. ( )