Monday, March 4, 2013

Heart of Ice-P.J. Parrish

Heart of Ice


P.J. Parrish

Pocket, Feb 26 2013, $7.99

ISBN: 9781439189375



In 1990 Florida based private investigator Louis Kincaid is in Michigan spending time with his ten year old daughter Lily. Seven months ago, Kincaid had been working a case in Ann Arbor when he learns his college girlfriend Kyla had not aborted their unborn as she threatened and he dared her. Now he is grateful she did not as father and daughter visit Mackinac Island though he detests the comparisons his tweener makes of him to her stepdad police officer Eric Channing who persuaded Kyla to tell Lily.



Kincaid plans to return to law enforcement if he can obtain an offer in Florida as he knows he is marked as a troublemaker in Michigan. Meanwhile he and Lily bike Mackinac Island when she notices Twin Pines, a house she thinks is haunted so they make an abrupt detour. When she trespasses Lily falls through the floor onto bones. The victim is probably teenage summer resident Julie Chapman who vanished in 1969. Chief of Police Jack Flowers hands over the investigation to State Detective Norm Rafsky, a working acquaintance of Kincaid’s girlfriend Joe Frye who he is to meet in two days. Meanwhile Lily asks her dad to help Flowers with the case as the local cop has no experience with homicides.



The latest Louis Kincaid investigation (see Thicker Than Water, Paint It Black and Dark of the Moon) is an enjoyable twisting whodunit that in spite of the 1990 date has a historical feel to the storyline due to the salad days of the IT gizmo revolution. Although the cop-P.I. rivalry feels somewhat stereotypical, sub-genre readers will relish this thrilling cold case Michigan mystery from the moment Lily rushes into Twin Pines until the final stunning revelation.



Harriet Klausner

No comments: