Darkness the Color of Snow — Thomas Cobb

"What happened is what happened, and the effects of it rippled out continuously. How could you stop the rippling of water?"

Out on a rural highway on a freezing night, Patrolman Ronny Forbert sits in his cruiser trying to keep warm and make time pass until his shift ends. Then a car comes speeding over a hill, forcing the rookie cop to chase it. Within minutes, what begins as a clear-cut arrest for drunk driving spirals into a heated struggle between two young men with troubled pasts and ends in a fatal hit and run on an icy stretch of blacktop.

As the news spreads around the small town of Lydell, the police chief believes Forbert followed the rules, at least most of them, and is willing to stand by the young cop. But over the course of six days, as dark secrets and old grievances reveal themselves, the people of this tightly woven community decide that a crime must have been committed, that someone must pay a price.

Evocative, atmospheric, and powerful, "Darkness the Color of Snow" is a portrait of decency and desperation, ambition and pragmatism, heated passion and cool calculation of ordinary American lives.