ICE COLD

ICE COLD
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Copyright 2010
Ballantine Books
Hardback $ 26.00
ISBN 978-0-345-51548-3
336 pages

Most adults live fairly predictable lives. As a medical examiner, Maura Isles, is cautious. She is not a risk-taker. So while at a pathologists’ convention in Wyoming, she is offered the opportunity for an adventure from a former college classmate and fellow pathologist. Since her love life is not doubtful now, maybe this chance will change her life into something more meaningful. She agrees to a ski trip for the weekend.

When GPS gives directions, we tend to believe it is correct. As snow is falling and getting increasingly deeper, you definitely are hoping it is correct. However, when you are stuck in the snow, then you could care less about the GPS and just look for some place safe and out of the weather.

Maura, the other pathologist and his thirteen-year-old daughter, and another couple decide to leave the vehicle and hike to safety, trudging through the snow. They are relieved to come upon a small village of twelve identical houses. They enter one whose door was unlocked and are surprised to find the house is not equipped with the usual comforts of everyday life, such as electricity and central heat. Also, puzzling is the dinner that was left on the table, not eaten.

Meanwhile, the local police find Maura’s burned body with those also on this ski trip. They inform Maura’s employer in Boston and her best friend, Jane Rizzoli with her husband, Gabriel Dean, who works with the FBI as well as her left-behind love, Father Daniel Brophy of her death. Something doesn’t seem right by this and the threesome decides to go to Wyoming for answers.

Being the eighth book in a series is always difficult for an author and a reader. The reader doesn’t always understand the characters and the relationships if they have not read the previous books. That does not hold true in ICE COLD. This novel works as either a part of a series or as a stand-alone novel. Ms. Gerritsen is masterful with this combined task.

Obviously, by the timing, the release of this novel is to also promote the new series of Rizzoli and Isles on TNT. Tess Gerritsen is a graduate of Stanford University with her degree in anthropology. She also has a medical degree and has worked as a physician in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Tess bases her stories on her experiences such as her first novel, Harvest which is about orphaned children being killed for their organs. The idea for her first novel came from her visit in Russia. Her first Rizzoli and Isles thriller was The Surgeon. She has also written a historical thriller, The Bone Garden. Now, Gerritsen lives in Camden, Maine and is married while being the mother of two sons.

ICE COLD is fast-paced and haunting. The characters are believable and extremely realistic.

This is the perfect novel to read while in the sweltering summer temperatures. Reading ICE COLD will definitely chill you to the bones.