The Summer Snow - Tapa dura

In the southern city of Granada, Spain, bastion of the conservative Catholic aristocracy to which Lieutenant Carlos Tejada Alonso y Leon belongs by birth, fear of the Red Menace is still strong in 1945.
One rich, arrogant elderly lady summons the police to her home almost once a week, sure that Communists are plotting to kill her. She changes her will nearly as often. When she is found dead, the long-suffering police can't believe that she really may have been murdered. But as her latest will has vanished, her death must be investigated.
Influence is exerted to have Tejada transferred temporarily from Potes, in the northern mountains where he has been stationed, to take charge. The rich old lady is his grand aunt, Rosalia. And one of the chief suspects is his father. The family expects Tejada to exonerate its members, but the lieutenant is a man who puts duty first...most of the time.

Rebecca Pawel is twenty-eight years old and a graduate of Columbia University. She lives in New York City and teaches Spanish and English in a Brooklyn high school. She is the author of Death of a Nationalist, Law of Return, and The Watcher in the Pine. Rebecca frequently travels to Spain.