A Zebra Mystery Puzzler #11 - Death on the Slopes

With the eleventh Zebra Mystery Puzzler, we are treated to a new author to the series, Norma Schier.  This is the first of four books Schier writes for this series, all of which feature the young assistant district attorney, Kay Barth.  From what I have been able to learn, Norma Scheir was the author's actual name, and aside from these Zebra Mystery Puzzlers, Ms. Schier has also authored some very unique short stories over the years in which she parodies well-known mystery writers, using anagrams throughout her tales.  In fact, many of the pseudonyms used for these short stories are anagrams of actual authors, many of which are collected in Schier's book, The Anagram Detectives (for more about this, see Norma Schier - Anagam Detectives).  However, other than these Zebra mysteries and the short stories, I was unable to find any other books by Schier.

Death on the Slopes was published at the end of 1978, just one year prior to her book, The Anagram Detectives - leading me to believe that her short story fiction was published prior to her first Zebra Mystery Puzzler (and those stories may have been why Kensington asked her to write some of the mysteries for this series).  The book opens in rather unique way, with readers being dropped into a scene just moments before the murder occurs, as seen and heard through the eyes and ears of a witness who does not come back into play until considerably later in the book.  We even get our first interior illustration in that barely three-page prologue - but it is definitely enough to set the stage for all that comes after!

The first six chapters introduce readers to the vindictive, self-absorbed victim, Valerie Mayne, as well as the large cast of suspects - from Jason Ryder, newly transplanted from New York to Colorado to teach as the college in Aspen; to Drew Courtney, the tenured professor who will determine whether Jason is hired; to Alicia Courtney, the professor's wife who spends more time in the bottle than anywhere else; to Tammie Courtney, the professor's daughter, who is not thrilled her boyfriend is paying more attention to Valerie than her; to Anton Duval, a Frenchman who is a member of the ski patrol and thinks himself quite the ladies' man; to Charlie Winstead, the head of the ski patrol on the Aspen slopes, who is still getting over the fact his wife left him - with the exception of Valerie, who showed up on his doorstep in New York claiming to be an old friend of his dead wife who was in need of a place to stay before following him to Colorado, Jason known none of these people.  When Valerie turns up dead, and Jason is the prime suspect, he can't help but wonder if one of these people is the real killer?

And that is the very question to which Kay Barth, the young assistant district attorney with shiny black hair that tumbles to her shoulders, wants to find an answer!  Our protagonist of the tale finally makes her appearance in chapter 7, well after the other characters, the murder, and the setting are all established.  Schier provides readers with a very strong female lead, one who goes up against the chief of police, Mark Field, in an effort to solve this murder.  She quickly realizes that Jason Ryder is not the killer, but Field thinks it is only because she has developed feelings for the guy.  Determined to show Field that she is more than just a pretty face (and the mother of a young girl), Kay sets out to uncover the truth about what happened to Valerie Mayne - the only problem is, Valerie Mayne doesn't exist!  None of her back story that she told Jason checks out, and no one has come to claim her body, despite news reports showing her picture all over the place.  Kay realizes that in order to solve the murder, she is going to have to figure out who Valerie Mayne really is!

The mystery is very well written, and Schier does manage to throw out there a number of clues that will lead the reader in different directions.  However, when Kay ultimately tracks down Valerie's real identity and begins to put the pieces of her past together, there is one piece of that puzzle that made it clear for me who the killer was (and yes, it is definitely one of those suspects listed above - only not the one you would expect!).  And I found it interesting that Schier changes point-of-view a number of times throughout the book, switching between Jason and Kay, and even among some of the other cast as well - but she is careful not to give away anything too early in the story, which makes for a great read.

The internal illustrations are nicely done, but one again, no credit is given, and there are no signatures on any of the drawings.  They are quite detailed, reminding me a great deal of Ruth Sanderson's work in the Nancy Drew books published by Simon & Schuster back in the early 1980s.  (And speaking of which, as an aside here, Schier does manage to sneak in a Nancy Drew reference in there, when Kay tells her daughter she is investigating a crime, and her daughter asks, "Like Nancy Drew?" [p. 83])  I just wish the books had given a list of the "clues" that were supposedly in the illustrations, as I looked at all eight internal illustrations, and I honestly did not see any clue at all in them.  The cover, on the other hand, does have one rather subtle clue.  And speaking of the cover, Bruce Emmett (who painted the covers of the Marcia Blair books in this series) provided the art for this book - which gives this book another "Nancy Drew" connection, as Emmett provided the second cover art for Nancy Drew 68 - The Elusive Heiress.  (I won't even mention the "Ski Jump" sign in the internal illustration on page 85, which made me immediately think of Nancy Drew 29 - Mystery at the Ski Jump!)

This ranks among the best in this series, and it makes me look forward to Schier's future entries into the Zebra Mystery Puzzlers.

RATING:  9 blue Pontiac Bonnevilles out of 10 for mixing murder and mystery in the snow-covered mountains of Colorado and introducing readers to a great new sleuth!