{"id":797132,"date":"2019-06-26T14:40:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T20:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/aspen-novelist-catherine-oconnells-new-mystery-series-stars-a-ski-patroller\/"},"modified":"2019-06-26T14:40:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T20:40:00","slug":"aspen-novelist-catherine-oconnells-new-mystery-series-stars-a-ski-patroller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/aspen-novelist-catherine-oconnells-new-mystery-series-stars-a-ski-patroller\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen novelist Catherine O\u2019Connell\u2019s new mystery series stars a ski patroller"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The cover of Catherine O’Connell’s new novel, \u201cFirst Tracks,” a book in which the story’s hero is an Aspen ski patroller. O\u2019Connell hopes to write at least four more books in this Aspen series.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

ASPEN \u2014 In Catherine O\u2019Connell\u2019s new novel, our hero is an Aspen Mountain ski patroller.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to do a woman ski patroller book,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst Tracks\u201d is the first entry in a planned series for O\u2019Connell, centered on patroller Greta Westerlind. O\u2019Connell hopes to write at least four more books in this Aspen series.<\/p>\n

The book will be published July 1, but O\u2019Connell unveiled it for local Aspen readers early with a signing at Explore Booksellers on Monday. She dedicated \u201cFirst Tracks\u201d to five local Aspen women working as ski patrollers and instructors, and drew inspiration from them for Greta.<\/p>\n

A longtime Aspenite, O\u2019Connell began visiting Aspen during her time as a college student in Boulder in the mid-1970s and mostly settled here in 1979. O\u2019Connell included a handful of Aspen scenes in her most recent book, 2018\u2019s \u201cLast Night Out,\u201d but has otherwise avoided writing about her town until now. She\u2019s admittedly nervous about locals reading her depiction of the town.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to insult anyone,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I\u2019m writing a crime book, so I have to have a bit of fun with my characters and immensely wealthy people give me a lot to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst Tracks\u201d is a character-driven mystery centered on a smart and resourceful Ajax ski patroller. Westerlind, a hard-working, harder-skiing Wisconsin native, finds herself at the center of a menacing plot, following an avalanche on Aspen\u2019s backside that kills her bond-trading ski buddy and leaves her memory foggy.<\/p>\n

The ski patrol sections offer the reader a glimpse of the hidden work most of us don\u2019t see \u2014 the setting of avalanche bombs, a play-by-play of an on-mountain rescue.<\/p>\n

Much of Greta\u2019s narrative is a sort of love letter to skiing (\u201cEven sex isn\u2019t as good as this.\u201d) and O\u2019Connell has an easy, tactile way of describing ski scenes that will make any local pine for a powder run down Jackpot.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell peppers the first-person narrative with knowing local color, calling out linked ski runs during a powder day scene, detailing the Aspen housing shuffle, Ajax shrines, and small insights like \u201cit\u2019s difficult to be in City Market without seeing someone you know\u201d and \u201cAspen women just rock.\u201d There are witty descriptions of local phenomena like the \u201cAspen roulette\u201d of trying to fly into Sardy Field in wintertime, a sub-plot about an exploitative TV crew in town for a documentary about Ted Bundy and a scene detailing the inter-generational romantic pairings at a fictionalized Caribou Club (here called the Bugabou).<\/p>\n

And O\u2019Connell has some fun with the average Aspenite\u2019s proximity to obscene wealth. Greta\u2019s encounter with an international businessman nets a private jet ride to St. Moritz, for instance.<\/p>\n

The book is written such that it will give locals much to appreciate, but that won\u2019t exclude a general readership. Writing about a place she knows so well was a challenge for O\u2019Connell.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see everything perfectly, so I have to think about it through the eyes of somebody who has never been here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She was also careful not to slide into nostalgia about the ways Aspen has changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to avoid whining, and I think I did,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

This story is from AspenTimes.com<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cover of Catherine O’Connell’s new novel, \u201cFirst Tracks,” a book in which the story’s hero is an Aspen ski patroller. O\u2019Connell hopes to write at least four more books in this Aspen series.Courtesy photo ASPEN \u2014 In Catherine O\u2019Connell\u2019s new novel, our hero is an Aspen Mountain ski patroller. \u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-797132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 05:17:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}