And so, following the events of the final (so far) Star Trek film, the Enterprise is in dry dock being repaired, Will Riker has been promoted, has left the Enterprise to take command of the Titan, taking Deanna Troi with him, and Beverly has left to take the post of Head of Starfleet Medical. So the Enterprise is feeling very empty place for Jean-Luc Picard.

When a request is received from the native race on Kevratas, a Romulan subject world, for aid in developing a cure / vaccine, the one doctor who has most experience with this disease, Beverly Crusher, is called away on a secret mission deep into Romulan Territory. The problem is that is that soon after she arrives on the planet Beverly is captured by the Romulan rulers.

Upon hearing this Picard has no other desire than to rescue her, and to allow him the chance Starfleet have authorised another covert mission to assist the population of Kevratas, although the cure for the plague must be the number one priority of the mission, and must not be sacrificed to save Beverly. Picard and two of his former Stargazer crew (including the Chief Medical Officer who worked with Beverly on the Kevratas virus) head off on their own mission.

This mission is made all the more hazardous as the commander of the Romulan garrison is a woman with a personal vendetta against Picard – Tasha Yar's half Romulan daughter Sela.

So this book begins a new phase in Next Generation novels. The crew has split, with Riker's adventures now taking place in the Titan books, and Data having met his end in the Nemesis film, and the Enterprise itself being rebuilt following its battles in the Shinzon affair, so could return as a substantially different ship to the one last seen.

You get a definite feeling that the characters are feeling this transition, there is a feeling of things and people missing and being missed. It brings a very human touch to the story. And the story is a good one. I could have imagined telling a tale in these circumstances might feel a little contrived, forcing a tale where there would not feasibly be one. This one however feels true and plausible, linking as it does many of the events hinted at during the Star Trek Next Generation TV series (for instance Beverly's origins on a plague affected colony).

It's also quite reassuring to see a story where the central idea is one of attempting to save people rather than shooting them.

This is a comfortable book, the author has a definite grasp on the world of Star Trek and the people who inhabit it. Given that the film Nemesis marked the very definite end of an era for the Next Generation story, the author has in this novel moved the story on, and has started the building of a new foundation for future voyages. And I am definitely looking forward to reading the next stories.

Synopsis
Like Homecoming did for Star Trek: Voyager and Avatar did for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Death In Winter picks up the Star Trek: The Next Generation story after the TV/movies are complete and tells all-new stories about favourite Next Generation characters and their subsequent lives. After the fall of Shinzon (as seen in the feature film, Star Trek: Nemesis) the elite of the Romulan Empire are battling over who will seize control. Caught up in this struggle are the Kevrata, a once proud people, now strangled under Romulan domination. When a biogenetic disease threatens to wipe out their race, Starfleet assigns its new Chief Medical Officer, Dr Beverly Crusher, to aid the populace. But when she suddenly goes missing and is presumed dead, Jean-Luc Picard must race to try and locate Crusher and help find a cure for the disease that could kill millions.