The Snow Garden (Christopher Rice, 2002)

I absolutely adored Christopher Rice's first novel, A Density of Souls, and I've just finished his second, The Snow Garden. I couldn't get enough of this book to begin with either. Seemingly a story about relationships, between Kathryn, Randall and Jesse, 3 college freshmen, each with their own secret pasts or presents... Randall is sleeping with his tutor, Eric, who's wife dies in mysterious circumstances while the men are in bed together... Kathryn is seemingly a prude with a secret back in San Francisco... and Jesse is the campus stud, bedding any woman he can, yet he's not the dumb walking penis Kathryn thinks he is...

As Randall begins to suspect Eric of murdering his wife, Jesse tries to find out Randall's secrets and Kathryn explores her own relationship with Mitchell, who also has an odd connection to Eric the intrigue builds and builds. Rice is expert at interweaving characters and plot strands, while making a very readable whole. His characters are gay, lesbian, straight, bi... but this isn't merely a 'gay' story, just as A Density of Souls wasn't, this is a story of relationships that becomes a mystery thriller. 

Towards the latter half of the book I still found the story compelling and readable, but as the thriller elements came to the fore with the revelation of the existence of a cult I became a bit dubious about where Rice was taking the book. Happily, as each character's secrets were revealed to the reader and each other, and as their worlds imploded or exploded (literally in one case) I found myself gripped once more. The last chapter and events at the conclusion take a macabre twist and not everyone gets a happy ending, which is how a book should end. I look forward to the next Christopher Rice!