Cold Weather

After dropping out of college in Chicago, Doug returns home to rainy Portland, Oregon to live with his more stable and responsible sister, Gail. Unsure of what to do next, Doug spends his days sleeping until noon and rereading old detective novels, while Gail goes about the daily routines of her quiet life. Eventually Doug manages to find a job working the night shift at an ice factory. There he meets Carlos, a longtime employee who moonlights as a DJ. Carlos is initially skeptical of Doug-he's seen all kinds of people pass through the job-but the two become friends after Doug lends him a copy of his favorite book, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Doug has not quite settled into his new life when Rachel, his former girlfriend from Chicago, arrives in town. Doug is wary of her, but he introduces her to Carlos and Gail. Later, when Rachel fails to turn up one night, Carlos is convinced something has happened to her. At first Doug and Gail think that he has read too much Sherlock Holmes, but soon they too start to suspect foul play. With Doug in the lead, relying largely on expertise gained from years of reading detective novels, they set out to investigate. What they discover is a complex trail of clues, leading them closer and closer to the mysterious truth about Rachel. COLD WEATHER is simultaneously a story of a brother and sister getting to know each other after years apart and a mystery in the great tradition of crime and detective fiction.