A Cold and Lonely Place

A man is found encased in ice in upstate New York. Who is he? How did he get there? Freelance writer Troy Chance is documenting the Winter Carnival ice palace, and knows exactly who the dead man is. He is the boyfriend of Troy’s roommate, who is quickly implicated in his death. The harder question to answer is how did the man end up under the ice. The dead man’s sister asks Troy to write an in-depth feature on him. Troy assumes that he is a no-good deadbeat. She discovers that there is much more than meets the eye.

I loved the premise of A Cold and Lonely Place, but I didn’t love the book. Many of the details were simply told to readers, instead of shown. Troy’s roommate is implicated almost immediately, which was too convenient. A detail that’s revealed at the very end of the book could have been brought out much earlier to make it more plausible that the roommate did it. There were a lot of interesting family secrets revealed much too late. I felt that the book was wrapped up too quickly and neatly.

This was the second book from Sara J. Henry that features Troy Chance. I didn’t read the first book, but the author gave me enough background where I didn’t feel completely lost.

Read-alike book: The Water’s Lovely by Ruth Rendell

Carrie