I wouldn't qualified this as a mystery per se, more suspense. It's more about the things that happen in a small town than anyone doing any sort of investigation which is a bit disconcerting to me. It felt more like a novel to introduce the town and the series than anything so that disappointed. But that aside, I liked the town and I liked Zak and Tiff.

Zak is a hometown guy underemployed as a police dispatcher for a sheriff who cares more about small town politics than doing police work and the only one gung-ho for policing is new hire Nadine. Tiff has moved back to Montana after her life collapsed and she comes back to the family Christmas tree farm with her aunt and mom, the latter of whom never recovered from the loss of her son and husband many years ago.

Only a young woman, RIley, has been murdered and she was working at the family farm. We have other story lines like her friend from high school, his wife and their new adopted baby or the lawyer, Justin, also freshly married to a woman with a young daughter to a mutual friends of theirs.

Now more time is spent on all that family life nonsense than anything else but if does eventually tie into the mystery. I liked the characters. I just wish there had been more investigating and less just falling into the answer at the end.