Just Finished Reading: Ice Cold Heart by P J Tracy (FP: 2019) [366pp]

At first glance Minneapolis PD thought it was a sex game that had gone tragically wrong. They’d seen that sort of thing before and such things no longer surprised them. But it soon became apparent that things just didn’t add up. There was the distraught husband, the victims online chat record and the sex ‘game’ partners ability to cover his tracks so well. This was no accident. As investigations continued they had a breakthrough – a similar unsolved killing had been reported on the other side of the country and there was a link. Both deaths had taken place at the same time an exhibition by a controversial artist who used bondage images in his work had opened in both locations. It started to look like they had a deranged ‘fan’ on their hands. But then things started to get complex. A foreign member of Interpol was in the city tracking down a war criminal from the former Yugoslavia who had killed and tortured his way throughout the region during the aftermath of the Soviet collapse. It looked like both organisations might just be after the same man….

As you might imagine (if you know me by now!) I read this because it had a very similar title to my last book – Cold Cold Heart. Such things amuse me. Despite its name and the fact that it was about a foreign national killing women in reasonably inventive ways this was a very different book that the previous read. For one thing this was a very good example of a police procedural novel, something I haven’t read for a while now! The central narrative is from the PoV of the local PD as they investigate the crime(s), interview witnesses and acquire clues/information. This was handled very well indeed and gave you just enough information to chew on as the investigation proceeded. The two detectives were very well drawn and sounded just like cops. The second narrative, eventually mixing with the third, was from the PoV of a group of IT Security experts (one of whom who was one of the detectives partners) called the ‘Monkey Wrench Gang’ who did free consulting for the police and other law enforcement agencies. The third, and I think much weaker, narrative was from the PoV of the Interpol agent who, at least in my opinion, didn’t act particularly rationally (although her back story might explain that!) and was there at times (I felt) to add jeopardy and simply move the plot forward. The story would have been none the weaker without her. But apart from that one niggle this was a cracking read which I devoured inside a few days – not really helping my review backlog! Whilst looking for the cover I discovered that this is actually the TENTH book in the series (so it looks like I’ve got some catching up to do) and that the ‘author’ is a mother and daughter team. Regretfully the mother died recently so I expect this will be the last book in this particular series. If you can stand a bit of tension (there’s hardly any ‘gore’ in the entire book which I liked) this is an excellent police thriller and I was very entertained by it from the start. As dark as the previous book was this is quite the opposite and seemed full of light and air. A delight and very recommended to all crime lovers…. Although it might be best starting with the FIRST book in the series!