Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Great Atmosphere; A So-So Mystery: A Cold and Lonely Place by Sarah Henry


Troy Chance, a reporter, is covering the building of the Ice Palace on Flower Lake outside Lake Placid when a body is found frozen in the ice. Troy knows the person. Toblin Winslow was the boyfriend of one of her roommates, Jasseymn. Her boss at the newspaper asks her to write a piece about finding the body. At first, she declines feeling she's too close to the situation, but when the reporter assigned the task ends up writing a possibly actionable piece and implicates Jassemyn; she gets involved.

The best part of the book was the atmospheric setting. The author did an excellent job of making the cold and loneliness of the Adirondacks in winter come alive. The atmosphere of Lake Placid and Saranac, where ski bums mingle with tourists, was very realistic. I could feel as if I had been there.

The characters and mystery are not as strong as the atmosphere and the minor characters. Tory manages to get extremely involved with the family of the dead man. Without really intending to, she's set on the course of solving the mystery. It was almost solving the mystery by accident.

The minor characters are well drawn. This is another plus for the book. They added color and texture.

At times the writing became rather pedestrian giving us information about the setting we didn't need. I think anyone living in the United States and probably other parts of the world is familiar with McDonalds and Wendys.

I recommend this book if you like atmospheric mysteries. It's probably best if it's snowing outside and you're wrapped up in a warm quilt by the fire.

I reviewed this book for the Amazon Vine Program.   

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