[Synopsis]
Her eyes are wide open. Her lips parted as if to speak. Her dead body frozen in the ice… She is not the only one.
When a young boy discovers the body of a woman beneath a thick sheet of ice in a South London park, Detective Erika Foster is called in to lead the murder investigation
The victim, a beautiful young socialite, appeared to have the perfect life. Yet when Erika begins to dig deeper, she starts to connect the dots between the murder and the killings of three prostitutes, all found strangled, hands bound and dumped in water around London.
What dark secrets is the girl in the ice hiding?
As Erika inches closer to uncovering the truth, the killer is closing in on Erika.
The last investigation Erika led went badly wrong… resulting in the death of her husband. With her career hanging by a thread, Erika must now battle her own personal demons as well as a killer more deadly than any she’s faced before. But will she get to him before he strikes again?
[My Review]The Girl in the Ice is a brilliantly fast paced Crime novel with elements of mystery and police procedure, all of which combine to make a really absorbing, well written ‘whodunnit’.
The characters are all interesting and well developed, with Erika Foster shining as a strong female protagonist who isn’t perfect, but someone you’re really rooting for anyway. (Plus, who’s really perfect anyway? That would just be annoying!)
I loved that this book keeps you guessing throughout, and wondering about which suspects are not as they seem. There were twists and turns to keep the suspense and I really enjoyed the details of the Police investigation.
The writing is succinct but entertaining; I never felt like I just wanted the author to hurry up and get to the end, which I have sadly felt with many other novels in the past, as I was loving every chapter. I raced through this in a few days and hugely enjoyed it (apart from the part where they go to Norfolk and its portrayed as some backwater, horrible area that they can’t wait to leave, somewhat perpetuating stereotypes I feel! Then again my job is to promote Norwich as a tourism destination so I would say that! ???? )
I am so impressed that this is Robert Bryndza’s first a crime novel- to me it reads as well as, and is as polished as, many established and more ‘well known’ Crime authors, if not better- and this just shows that the number of previous books in a certain genre doesn’t mean anything really! I will certainly read any future books in the series- apparently Bryndza is working on The Nightstalker, the second book in the DCI Erika Foster series, so I’m adding that to my To Read list as I write this!
[Rating: 5/5]
** Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a copy of this novel in return for an honest review **
[…] The Girl in the Ice – Robert Bryndza*: this had the perfect blend of police procedures, ‘whodunnit’ and action. The characters made me want to read more and the police investigation was interesting to read about- overall, I just felt that this was a fantastic start to a great new series that I’d like to read more of. Here’s my review. […]
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