Book review: A Hunt in Winter

THE setting is Victorian Dublin, as newly promoted detective inspector, Joe Swallow investigates an outbreak of sexual assaults on women. 

Paralleling this is the British government’s attempt to undermine the Irish parliamentary leader, Charles Stewart Parnell, by trying to locate incriminating logs which Swallow and his superior, Mallon, are reluctant to reveal.

The description of “the fern-patterned frost on glass” captures well the winter scene, which is an atmospheric motif throughout the novel.