Everything you need to understand or teach A Killing Freeze by Lynn Hall.
In a mountain town during its annual Winter Fest, two people die, apparently at the hands of a deranged murderer. Clarie, the main character, finds Mrs. Amling in the snow: "She lay facedown, arms upflung, lookinggrotesquely childlike in her blue coveralls. Against either side of her body, her dogs huddled, shivering and looking up at me." The elderly woman who wrote children's books and seemed to have no enemies has died from a...