FADE TO WHITE takes you on a welcome journey back to Spruce Peak, where Stacey Curtis still wants to have some wintertime fun.The trouble is that her ex-fiance has just shown up -- with a television crew and a washed-up movie star and a dream of rekindling his old romance with Stacey.

And then there's the huge blizzard that's bearing down on her little mountain village, during which the movie star disappears from his mountainside retreat.Which is when things get complicated.

The mystery is lightweight but exciting, just like the best kind of snowfall on a Vermont ski town.

The cast of familiar supporting characters -- ski patroller Chip Walsh, sheriff Guy Ramsey, barfly Tina Montero -- are back in fine form, and the New England environment feels even more fully realized and lived-in it did in Clinch's first book, DOUBLE BLACK.

Highly, highly recommended.