Ice Cold, book review

When I’m looking for a thrill ride of a book, Tess Gerritsen seldom fails to deliver, and so I was pleased to check out Ice Cold, her latest. It’s the eighth of her novels featuring the tried-and-true duo of homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles.

While at a medical conference in Wyoming, Maura is surprised to encounter a college acquaintance, who persuades her to join him, his daughter, and another couple on a spontaneous ski trip. An accident soon derails their adventure, however, and they seek refuge in the village of Kingdom Come, a cult’s home that’s been mysteriously abandoned. Jane, meanwhile, becomes concerned when she’s unable to reach Maura, and when local police find five charred bodies at the scene of a vehicle accident and identify one of them as Maura’s, Jane travels to Wyoming to investigate.

Though there were a few plot holes that I would have liked filled, Ice Cold offers satisfying depth in both story and characters, neither of which ever feels cardboard or contrived. In this way, Gerritsen remains true to form. Even so, the suspenseful thrills here weren’t as gratifying as those which I’ve experienced in many of her other works. This novel felt too commercialized, actually. I had the same reaction when Mary Higgins Clark relaxed into her role as Queen of Suspense. In Gerritsen’s case, perhaps the fact that TNT recently launched a TV series based on Maura and Jane had something to do with it. Perhaps the speed with which she must now produce her work makes the quality suffer. Which is not to say that Ice Cold was poorly written. It wasn’t. But if you’re looking for the full-on, goose-bump-raising effect of Tess Gerritsen at her finest, I’d suggest you start with one of her earlier works.