The Wolf in Winter was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2014. A homeless man named Jude dies in Portland, Maine — apparently of exposure, another invisible casualty of the city’s streets. But his death attracts Parker’s attention because Jude had recently been to Prosperous, a small town in northern Maine noted for its unusual prosperity: beautiful homes, no poverty, successful businesses — in a region where other towns are dying.
Parker’s investigation reveals that Prosperous’s good fortune is not natural: the town was founded by English dissidents who brought their church with them stone by stone — and with the church, something older. Something that lives beneath it and sustains the town in exchange for periodic sacrifice. The residents of Prosperous know what feeds their prosperity and have chosen, collectively and across generations, to accept it.
The novel is Connolly’s most explicit engagement with folk horror: the Wicker Man tradition of communities that maintain pagan bargains beneath Christian surfaces. But it’s also a pointed social commentary — the comfortable people of Prosperous, who turn away homeless people and outsiders, who maintain their wealth by sacrificing the vulnerable, are not so different from any prosperous community that maintains its comfort through the exploitation of the invisible.
Collecting The Wolf in Winter
First edition (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2014): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- UK first edition, fine/fine: $20–$50
- US first (Atria, 2014), fine/fine: $15–$35