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The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel
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The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel
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The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel
Audiobook11 hours

The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel

Written by P. D. Viner

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

For fans of Tana French and The Silent Wife, The Last Winter of Dani Lancing is a chilling debut thriller hailed by Sophie Hannah as "brilliant" about one murder's devastating ripple effects.

Twenty years ago, college student Dani Lancing was kidnapped and brutally murdered. The killer was never found. Dani's family never found peace.

Thrust into an intense devastation that nearly destroys their marriage, Patty and Jim Lancing struggle to deal with their harrowing loss. Patty is fanatically obsessed with the cold case; consumed by every possible clue or suspect no matter how far-fetched, she goes to horrifying lengths to help clarify the past.  Meanwhile, Jim has become a shell of his former self, broken down and haunted-sometimes literally-by his young daughter's death. Dani's childhood sweetheart, Tom, handles his own grief every day on the job-he's become a detective intent on solving murders of other young women, and hopes to one day close Dani's case himself.

Then everything changes when Tom finds a promising new lead. As lies and secrets are unearthed, the heartbreaking truth behind Dani's murder is finally revealed.


The Last Winter of Dani Lancing is a shockingly disturbing and deeply powerful debut, and P.D. Viner immediately joins the ranks of Tana French, A. S. A. Harrison, and Gillian Flynn.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 8, 2013
ISBN9780804149211
Unavailable
The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel

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Reviews for The Last Winter of Dani Lancing

Rating: 3.4484535257731963 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

97 ratings34 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a review of the audio version only, plenty of others have discussed the book. This is the most irritating audio version of a book I have ever heard. (I mostly do audio books because my disability makes it hard for me to hold actual books.)Whenever I start an audio book and learn that it is a cast performance, not a single narrator, I get a bit nervous. But most have turned out fine. This one was just totally wrong. When one is doing a performance of a play, sound effects are expected. But this audiobook continually added sound effects over the author's description of what was happening. This was distracting and unnecessary. And then there was this ridiculous, awful banshee like wail that was interspersed on multiple occasions at the creative (?) discretion of the producer? Also, what was the point of "Intermissions"? I seriously doubt the text had these.Extended sobbing and wailing sounds lasted though sentences of text. Again, this went on and on where the text had succinctly portrayed the events. Interestingly, when there was a scene where a man was supposed to be screaming, all that was delivered was a series of grunts, and grunts, and grunts. It seemed like every time a character was described in the text as walking during a scene there were the sound of footsteps. This drove me nuts. Every time the text referred to a phone ringing we were treated to that sound effect. And on and on.If you are tempted to listen to the audio version of this book, I can't recommend it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The book is the story of how a young woman's brutal murder affected her mother, father and childhood sweetheart. It follows the three main characters as they react to the murder and the case being reopened in a variety of ways. It's a fairly fast moving plot that bounces among those three characters and among a variety of time periods. That timeline device was mostly effective, though I did find that I had to check dates carefully (a little more carefully than I would have liked) to ensure I could follow where I was in the story - ok, this is before X, but after Y. It's difficult to write this review and express a few of the issues I had with this book without giving away the plot. I originally gave it 3.5 stars, but I thought about it overnight and decided that I'd felt a little misled by certain elements, so I knocked off another half a star. The resolution was probably where I had the biggest problem. And it left at least one thread hanging that felt unnecessary.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    the characters were all in love with Dani. But the author did not make me fall in love with Dani. but the story was well crafted
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    very strange at the beginning but picks up at the end
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great! lots of twist & turns and plenty of supence. "Enjoy"
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    OK, but a bit too dramatic in the crying parts - in my opinion.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved the format of a full cast.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved it! Intriguing characters and very interesting story.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Good story.
    The most elaborate audiobook production I have listened to and at least for me, the most irritating. Maybe you'll enjoy the production more, maybe you won't, like me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    well written. suspensful. keeps you guessing right to the end. hope there are more DI Blevins novels to come!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    great listen!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I won an advanced readers copy from Library Thing. I knew the writer was English before I even read the back cover due to the way some of the words were spelled. I did like this book, I just didn’t care for the jumping around, and that was kind of driving me crazy. This was a definite psychological thriller and kept me guessing until the end. You really feel for the characters and their grief over Dani’s death and how it changes them. The mother Patty really is consumed with revenge that she loses sight over everybody around her and goes down a horrible path, while the father, Jim is just as harmed psychologically by seeing the ghost of Dani. I like how Tom tries to protect the reputation of Dani, even though it is probably not the right way, but he is doing it out of love and respect.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The storyline is mercurial, moving here and there on the timeline, which I believe added to the suspense. P.D. Viner's writing style is reminiscent of Sophie Hannah or Tana French, If you've read them and enjoyed, you'll like this one too.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I picked up a copy of this book because the book cover caught my eye. Then I read the back cover and was like ok I am ready to read this book. It sounds like something right up my alley that I enjoy. Well I have to tell you that I not only enjoyed it but the first word that came to my mind after reading it was "brillant". I don't usually rave about a book unless it is really, extra special. Mr. Viner really knows how to tell a good story. As much as I felt that Dani's mother was cold in the beginning, I still could understand why she did the things she did in the name of grief and love. In fact, as I got to become more familiar with her, I felt sorry for her. Dani's father on the other hand was just a hot mess. He could not keep himself together. However I found it intriguing that Dani's father was communicating with Dani. Finally there is Tom. He was one of the good guys. He showed how much he loved Dani with his actions. I took this book with me on the road. To my destination it was 3 1/2 hours to four and I finished this book with about an hour and 15 minutes until I got to my location. This book is a one seat read that will have you disappointed when it ends!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel -- author P.D. Viner's debut in the form -- is nothing if not ambitious, and, in many respects, it is quite successful. However, in the execution of original and provocative stylistic choices, Viner overreaches his grasp on the whole. I enjoyed reading this book very much, and I eagerly anticipate seeing what/how Viner will do in future writing in this literary medium.

    1) The Novel's Strengths (Why You Might Really Like It Too)

    I enjoy a thriller simply on its own terms, but this example of the genre is enhanced with qualities outside the usual scope -- both expanding the audience who could enjoy this read and enhancing potential appreciation among its base draw. The main strength of Dani Lancing I have in mind is its significant poignancy. The subject of the novel, the mystery of a girl's murder just shy of adulthood, is well-suited to achieve this purpose, and the novel's primary characters include the two grieving parents with whom the reader will undoubtedly empathize to some extent. If that were the whole of the matter, I would characterize it as a circumstantial effect rather than a strength. On the contrary, before I keyed into any elements of loss, I was hooked by the first episodes of the novel, which principally depict tender moments in the relationship between a father and a daughter. Viner's writing tugged on my heartstrings and engaged my tenderness through activating my own memories.

    This was the most engaging aspect of the book for me, but it wouldn't have the same power as it did in the opening pages, with me anyway, but for the striking vividity of Viner's writing. Another reader's review cleverly pointed out that this is a book that is minded to be a film (ASAP). It sure does have a cinematic quality; a lot of what stuck with me about the nuance of the intense emotions experienced by the characters was rooted in visual imagery in the text.

    The characters are very well-developed, and their emotional responses are multi-dimensional. In addition to paranormal and sometimes intense suspense surrounding the murder of the titular character, a significant portion of the plot revolves around the experience of her parents as they try to get to the truth at long last while relating to one another after a period of estrangement. Their connection and shared sentiments co-exist with the intensity of their individual grief and its expressions. Returning to the point about vivid depictions of emotions, which draw the reader into the novel, the examples that stick with me the most are various instances where one character or another is experiencing some particular and very palpable agitation. It's an experience.

    2) The Novel's Weaknesses (Why It Might Turn You Off)

    Viner employs an unusual style in telling the story in Dani Lancing. I had to read the first couple of chapters more than once to understand what was happening. The narration freely jumps between characters' memories and the present. I enjoy formal innovation in novels personally; my favorite of all time is James Joyce's Ulysses. While I did not have the time to "close read" any portion of this book, I got the sense that the rules of Viner's unique narrative approach were kind of fast and loose, as it were. I really didn't feel it was rigorous enough to be successful artistically. As such, I found the style an impediment to my enjoyment of the novel -- which was nevertheless significant.

    I would recommend you pick up a copy, dear reader, and read a couple chapters. Then you can get a sense of the unique style and decide how that impacts any desire to read this work.

    Thanks for reading my thoughts -- hope they help someone! Please be advised I accessed an Advanced Reader's Copy of this work electronically through kind permission of the publisher (Crown) on NetGalley.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love to lose myself in a good mystery and/or thriller and found a lovely, engrossing escape in P.D. Viner's The Last Winter of Dani Lancing.We learn the details of Dani Lancing's life, disappearance, and brutal death from the point of view of the three people that knew her best and who have never recovered from her loss. Her parents have long since grown apart and divorced. Her father, Jim, is literally haunted by his daughter - and carries on conversations with Dani, whether real or imagined is uncertain. Her mother who had been a prize winning crime journalist has left her work and is obsessed with victim's rights and learning who hurt her daughter. Tom, her best friend and childhood companion, hasn't just become a cop, Tom leads a special elite group that concentrates on brutal crimes against women.P.D. Viner shows us how each of these key persons knew Dani and what they knew of her life. The story of The Last Winter of Dani Lancing draws us in with the complicated plotting, memorable characters, and an engrossing story. If you enjoyed Gone Girl, AA Harrison's The Silent Wife, and Defending Jacob, you should pick up a copy of The Last Winter of Dani Lancing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Original and full of bread crumbs. Not only is this a murder mystery but a tale of ultimate love for another, husband/wife, parent/child, friend/friend, lover/lover. There is the jumping back and forth in time narrative that is a bit uneven. But the story? The tension? Really strong until the end. If you have OCD and/or like everything neatly explained away, you should be satisfied. Otherwise? You will probably have a WTF moment wondering exactly who finished writing this book.Overall, worth the read and an author to watch.Provided by publisher.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is an ambitious book. It is simply the solving of the murder of Dani Lancing. But the author tries to do so many other things. The characters of Dani and her parents, Patricia and Jim are detailed. Many other characters fill the pages and are drawn in some detail. I would have to say that the book is a bit unsatisfying because although many characters are presented as possibilities, the true murderer is fairly random. I think the author has a good feel for the pace of a mystery but will distill more information next time so that the book isn't so long.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The buzz surrounding The Last Winter of Dani Lancing is quite noisy - I've seen this title bandied about on Twitter, Facebook, and across numerous blogs. So what is the big deal (besides the obvious fantastic cover). Is it the name that brings out my touch of dyslexia (I always read it as The Last Winter of Lani Dancing which would take the book in an entirely different direction)? Is it a unique take on a story that has been told time and time again (Rogue daughter goes rogue)? What is it?Read the rest of this review at The Lost Entwife on Oct. 11, 2013.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    By P.D. VinerCrown Publishers (Random House), 393 pgs978-0-8041-3682-2Submitted by Random HouseRating: 2.5WARNING: Spoiler alert. Proceed at your own risk.I am flummoxed. The Last Winter of Dani Lancing. Great title. Promising story. Excellent pacing. Good enough dialogue. Unique characters who stay in character. Evocative sense of place. Firmly rooted in genre (this is a first novel for the author and we can quibble over whether or not falling squarely into genre is a good thing, but let's not.) Technical details indicate sufficient research on the part of Mr. Viner. Clues are offered and the foreshadowing often clever. But I cannot for the life of me get it to come together. The parts are greater than the whole.Dani(elle) is the daughter of Jim and Patty Lancing: bright university student, track star, beautiful (aren't they all?), Daddy's little girl, contentious critic of a career-centered mother, childhood love (obsession) of Tom Bevans who has become a police detective. So far so good. Additionally, Dani is in love with a married man twenty-plus years her senior; she is pregnant; and then there's the raging heroin addiction, which inevitably means she ends up as some dealer's punch and turned out as entertainment for his friends and business associates. Dani goes missing and her body is discovered three weeks later. No arrests were ever made. It is a cold case.As the story begins, Dani has been dead for twenty years and her ghost has been hanging out with her dad for the last twelve. She showed up when Patty left Jim rather than grind him to a fine powder under the weight of her grief and guilt. Detective Inspector Tom Bevans has gotten word that Dani's case will come up for review due to advances in DNA technology. Samples were taken and have been preserved. Much smaller amounts of DNA can now be reliably tested. There is a DNA database that can be searched for a match. You think this is good news, don't you? Everyone in this story has an ulterior motive. Remember that. The downside of this development is that it could take another four years for this to happen because there are a LOT of cold cases. So Patty hires a private expert, a former pathologist named Keyson (who turns out to be a sociopath with personal and professional reasons to hate DI Bevans,) to try to move things along.And move things along he does. Right off a cliff.Remember what I told you to remember? Everyone here has motives of their own. No one is innocent, or even not guilty. Due to the machinations (deus ex machina?) of Dr. Keyson and the fact that Patty has gone nuts, these ensue: kidnapping, torture, assault and battery, murder, car crashes, tampering with evidence, an overdose of Ketamine, bribery, extortion, suicide, loan sharks, seizure disorders, breaking and entering, petty theft, racketeering, snow, foot chases, car chases, comas, chloroform, and acts of God. Yep. And all of it could have been avoided. Do you know why all of these things happened? Because of the trope of "the good girl." Whore or Madonna, make your choice and make it now because you cannot change your mind later and there is no allowance for individuality, complexity or ambiguity. These things happened because a couple of men wanted so badly for the world to believe that Danielle Lancing had been a good girl that, in the final reckoning, they denied her any humanity. They turned her into a doll. The only saving grace for Dani is that she got to deliver the coup de grace at the end of the story. Even if she was a ghost.I found it difficult to follow The Last Winter of Dani Lancing in the beginning; the narrative jumps back and forth in time so often and it switches points of view constantly. Your brain will try to impose order and I attempted to fight this, go with the flow, and trust the author. Mistake. My main problem with Dani Lancing is that the author seems to have thrown in a little something from every movie he's ever seen. He is a film-maker, after all, and an award-winning one at that. I was with him, willfully suspending incredulity, until about page 346. At that point the number of cliches reached critical mass and I buckled. By page 360 it had become a cartoon. Deep breath. Which is not to say that Mr. Viner doesn't have promise. He does. Please refer back to the first paragraph of this review. So many individual elements that were sooo good. They just never made a cohesive whole. The author became overwhelmed with plot elements. I will read his sophomore effort, if there is one, and let you know if that incipient promise is realized.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book has received primarily good reviews, which I only looked at after the fact, and I agree that P.D. Viner has an interesting imagination and creative writing skills. The plot of the book was not what I had imagined it to be from the blurb and the cover, but all in all it was a good read.It did contain more violence than I was expecting; I thought it would concentrate more on sleuthing, given that the mother of Dani teams up with a detective and childhood sweetheart to solve the identity of her daughter's killer. I can't disclose much of the plot without giving away the shock value of some of the events in the book (yes, some things will surprise you) but I can say that while I found the middle of the book to drag, the ending of the story was filled with red herrings and admissions of guilt by more than one person involved in this sad affair. The last few pages kept me glued to find out finally who committed the actual murder of Dani Lancing. It will be up to you to decide if a beginning with a good hook and a last quarter of the book with intensity building up is worth making your way through the slow-moving, depressing and bleak storyline of poor Dani.Recommended for suspense fans, and fans of dark, somewhat graphic, mysteries.A solid 3 stars.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The early chapters are written " in fractured time" as the back cover states. I found this to be annoying and confusing having to double check the time line that is at the beginning of each chapter in order to make sense of where and when things happened over twenty years and Dani as a child/ adult. I put it down for a weeks or so and then started reading it again becoming hooked into the story line. As the saying goes all will be made clear.....well mostly. In the end I did enjoy it and will likely reread it to see clues and red herring I missed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wouldn't say this is a highly suspenseful thriller but there is some level of suspense from start to finish that makes it a bit of a page turner. If you don't like books that jump around a lot in time, then this book isn't for you. It is very fragmented, but I thought it really worked in this novel. It required concentration which is something I like in a book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An intriguing mystery. I really thought this book was very interesting. The story kept me very engaged and there were twists and turns that added layers to the story. This is a great Fall read.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This is the story of a young girl kidnapped and murdered and the struggle of her parents and her boyfriend trying to cope with her death even 20+ years later. It is hard to read as it just does not flow smoothly. At times it was very hard to follow. And at times it was just not a believable, good mystery. I'm glad I was selected by LibraryThing to review this book, but I do not recommend it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Well I finished reading this one at 3am - could not go to sleep until it was done. The story starts of with the poignant tale of the untimely death of Danielle Lancing. The author sweeps you up in the grief and pain of her loved ones as they each in their own way deal with her loss. 20 years on their lives are fractured and consumed by their loss. A father who lives alone with the ghost of his beloved daughter, a mother chasing demons and twisted with the bitterness of those last words spoken, and a childhood friend who has lost the not so secret love of his life. But this story very quickly it turns into a tale of revenge and murder with a twist in the plot you wont expect. Oh you will think you have it pegged, but wait no. The story will grip you with suspense and the need to know - who killed Danielle Lancing. If you only read one book this year, make it this one.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I just could not settle into this book. The problems, for me, came right at the start. Rather than suspenseful, I found the writing style unnecessarily cryptic. Making sense of it all, particularly in the first 1/4 of the book, was too much of a struggle, and I was more annoyed than anything else.The biggest problem for me is the way the story is told. It's completely out of sequence, with the timeline jumping back and forth and all over the place. Initially, the author does a good job of clearly marking the passages with the date. Even then, I found it difficult to keep my place in the story, because we never established a foothold in any one time. But soon we're shifting timelines within passages, and this left me disoriented. I think the story has potential, but needed a better grasp on the present and more character development.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I won this ARC through LibraryThing. Loved the cover. I enjoyed this novel about a girl that was violently killed 20 years ago. The case has been recently reopened to do tests with new DNA testing. The story tells the effects that this has on her mother, dad and boyfriend. You have to carefully watch the dates when reading this story because it jumps around from present to various time in the past. I disliked the ending because it left questions unanswered.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I won this ARC from LibraryThing. It's a story about Dani that was murdered 20 years ago. Her killer was never found. Her mom won't stop looking to find the killer and getting revenge. She thinks she found that man but things go wrong. This story is told out of sequence and Dani is throughout the book as a ghost. A different kind of novel, I had trouble putting it down.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    SO TERRIBLE.