Author Description

"Here's to Death." This would have been an appropriate toast on the stroke of midnight for the New Year's Eve party at the plush country house of John Halley in Westchester County. Within two hours he had been murdered twice! A heavy snowstorm isolated the house, roads were closed, and finally the power failed leaving the once gay guests shivering in cold rooms while further terrors walked the halls. Discovery of John Halley's stiff body in the lake interrupted the holiday plans of the redoubtable Captain Heimrich, of the New York State Police, who worked with unusual speed to separate the innocent from the guilty. He was not fast enough, however, to prevent an effective hatchet job on a guest who had seen too much. But as the electric company mended broken lines to restore lifegiving power and the first snowplow opened the road to the outside world, the villain was meshed in Captain Heimrich's net.