Point Roberts, in the Pacific Northwest, has a history – a history of murder that happened every February decades ago. Since then, the town has gone on lockdown each February: no one in, no one out. A total of fifteen people were killed, but after the lockdowns started, the murders stopped. Even when it seemed further lockdowns were not necessary, the town continued the tradition, for some bizarre (quirky!) reason.

Liza has moved to the island with her foster family. She feels a bit of a misfit, of course, and now there’s this weirdo lockdown month where no one can go anywhere and outsiders can’t get in.

She teams up with four other misfits, and the group tries to determine who the Point Roberts serial killer was – or is.

!!!!Spoilers here!!!!

The atmosphere is gloomy, as one might expect in that region in the grip of winter. Note: you must be willing to push your suspension of disbelief a little harder in this story than some others, not just during the investigation phase, but during the denouement – the killer (who you can probably guess) killing for reasons attributed to a secret and to mental illness, the presentation of which was a bit of a curiosity.

I didn’t really care for this, although I understand it can happen in real life. But the reasoning behind the murders and the secret they conceal just struck me wrong.

It’s well enough written, although I think there was a but too much effort to try to make everyone quirky, and there were a couple of tropes that bugged me (one in particular: HIV these days is not an automatic death sentence, and someone who gets a positive test will get a second one to confirm). Also, what’s the deal with this girl running around the island with four adults? that’s just…odd. There are some clunky portions, and it could have used a bit of trimming. Authors, please don’t have your climax explained in excruciating detail. If you have to explain that much at the end, you haven’t done enough before that point to lay the groundwork of the story.

I’ll give it three stars out of five.

Thanks to Alden and NetGalley for the review copy.