Isolation during a snowstorm is a convenient and haunting plot device, one the grand master herself, Agatha Christie, uses well in her story “Three Blind Mice,” precursor to the long-running stage play, “The Mousetrap.” In her tale, guests at an English country inn are isolated during a blizzard, trapping them in the old manor with a dead body and someone suspected of being a murderer. With the cold and the snow, there is no place to go. This has all the elements, literally: raging snowstorm, isolated location, a collection of strangers and no way to seek help. In Taylor Adams’ recent suspense thriller, No Exit, a college student waiting out a ferocious blizzard at a remote highway rest stop with several other strangers, discovers a young girl locked in a crate in one of the vehicles parked outside and realizes a psychopath is one of her companions. So why is it that when the winter season is in full swing and makes many of us feel like shut-ins, we seem to revel in the enjoyment of a good book about people isolated in a frozen environment, fending off unseen dangers and clinging to hope of rescue? Is it that we ourselves crave rescue from the cold doldrums of the winter landscape? Maybe.īooks about people feeling trapped and isolated in desolate locations enthrall us because we know how much we don’t want to end up in situations like that. What better time to curl up by a roaring fire and read a good book by the light of a lamp? Winter is here and with the long dark nights up north and the biting cold winds come feelings of isolation and cabin fever.

The long dark cabin fever