An audio book.
In chapter 0, first person passages alternate with 3rd person ones. A mid-40s woman, Victoria, is burying the body of a 24 y.o. man, Ed. We learn that the woman is the man's boss, and that the first-person voice is the man's.
We go back in time, Ed's third person PoV. Victoria's a DI and Ed is a DC. They're delivering Bishop, a long-time criminal with lung cancer (needing an oxygen mask), out of prison to a sort of halfway house - part of GlenFarrack, a village with CCTV, a curfew, no mobiles, no internet, unreliable electricity, but a 3 storey library. Of the 200 criminals, mostly tagged (though the monitoring is unreliable), there are 100+ sex criminals, and 60 were involved with organised crime. As the police go back (she has a box of AmDram Special Effects because she's on her way to a rehearsal) they get a call to say that there's been a murder back in the town. They U-turn and investigate.
Geoff Newman has been killed - a bent cop and a child-pornographer, so he had many enemies. Next day his house is set alight despite local cops guarding it. Then a social worker, Caroline, disappears. There are drugs in her house. In childhood she may have been molested by her father.
Victoria, a battle-axe (Ed thinks of her as Bigtoria), isn't impressed by the local police or services. For a while the police station loses all contact with the outside world. The icy roads further isolate the town. For a change of clothes they raid the secondhand shop.
They think there's some illegal distilling/brewing is going on in the woods. Geoff's hobby was carpentry - he'd wanted to make something in the wood.
Pauline Thompson is found dead on the kitchen table, killed the same way as Geoff. Carey Mulbray is there in shock, holding a blooded knife. She's maimed after a fire years before. She says that Pauline wasn't guilty of her original crime. She'd been framed by Joseph Ivanson, who meets Rupert Frazer regularly in the library. But Bishop had told Ed that Joseph was dead. Rupert is friendly with Anna.
After midnight, Victoria decides they need to visit Bishop and his carer, "Razor". She's worked out that Rupert and Joseph are the last of a gang. Victoria kills Ed.
Now the third-person PoV becomes Victoria's. She and the criminals know each other from long ago. Bishop has been plotting a plan to recover the money from a theft. Bishop and Razor leave for Joseph's. She was supposed to dispose of the body but she just hid it. By the time Victoria arrives, Joseph is being tortured. Razor kills him having got the info he wanted. Bishop had met Big Craig (a master criminal) inside and knew he'd given each of 7 people a piece of info that together would lead to the loot in a safe deposit box. He'd only just worked out who the 7 were. Razor sets the house alight. The 3 leave.
Ed reappears as "I", driving a snowplough. The narrative backtracks. Victoria didn't kill him, just rendered him unconscious for a while. He wasn't in on the ruse until she returned to bury him (she had to, because Razor was watching). He dug himself out. In the wood he finds a shack where Caroline is being held captive by Bedwin. He frees her and they all head back to the police station. But if (as is inevitable) Razor and Bishop find out he's alife, Victoria is in danger and her plan to retrieve the loot will fail. But the local police are part of the crime ring. They try to kill him. He escapes.
Razor and Bishop overhear Victoria's walkie-talkie message and become suspicious. Razor tries to kill her. Bishop shoots Razor dead - he's not ill after all. Victoria runs from him. He shoots her in the leg. Ed turns up in time - a snow plough being the only vehicle that can get through the snow.
I liked the twists. The language is entertaining - e.g. "breathing like a ruptured accordian". I'm puzzled by "slithering about like a snake in a sack of milk".
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