“I first met Detective Inspector Luc Vanier when we were both alone, drinking our way through Christmas, pretending the holiday season didn’t exist. Luckily, we both got distracted. Vanier was called out to investigate a series of murders in Montreal’s metro system, and I followed, recording what I imagined. In the months that followed, The Dead of Winter took shape in hotel rooms, airports and internet cafes. Vanier was with me wherever I went.
I learned that he has a hard time with authority and a clear sense of justice.
What matters most in fiction is the people that populate it, and people are rarely straightforward, neither entirely good nor irredeemably evil. Most of us make choices on the spur of the moment and with incomplete information. In The Dead of Winter, I have tried to explore how even good people can make bad choices – and the consequences of those choices.”
Peter Kirby