Talbot, Hake: Rim of the Pit

Another book that I have read based on a reference to it (I can't recall where), this is set in a wintry New England wilderness, thus being a sort of open-air closed room mystery.   Published in 1944, the book is pleasant enough but rather stilted.   The lead is an adventurer who has a flirtatious relationship with the stepdaughter of the women who is murdered.   The plot is straightforward though littered with red herrings.   I was left wondering why the recommendation that led me to the
book.   There is nothing wrong with it but, equally, nothing out of the ordinary which makes it one of
many amateur detective type novels of the 1920/1940 decades.