Rating: 
Summary: The latest in one of the genre's best series
Review: Sometimes it is the voice of the character that is the major strength of a work. It may exceed the plot, pacing or depiction of locale as the most important characteristic of the writer. Steve Hamilton's Alex McKnight is one of the most vivid and memorable in all of the mystery genre. Steve exploded on the scene in 1998 with the Edgar award winning A COLD DAY IN PARADISE. Since that time he has written a total of four other books with Alex McKnight as the main protagonist- all superior reads and among the best the genre has to offer.
ICE RUN starts out easy enough. A snow storm is coming to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Alex wants to meet his girlfriend, Natalie Raynaud, a Canadian Police Officer, in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan- about a two and a half hour drive from his home in Paradise. When he shows up a day late, an elderly gentleman is in the lobby with a suit and a fancy hat smiling and asking whether Alex likes his hat. Later, while Alex and Natalie are having dinner, the man buys them champagne and disappears out the door. The next day he turns up dead. Who was and how did he know them? These answers are considerably more complex.
As good as Steve Hamilton books are, not all are perfect. ICE RUN rings true with the voice of Alex McKnight but the book has its flaws. Characters, especially the minor ones, are not well sketched and tend to come off a bit wooden. The solution is so convoluted that it can make the reader's head spin and the ending contains the detested scene of the villian holding the hero at gunpoint as we clear up some final points just prior to the predictable conclusion. Nonetheless, the plot is compelling, the locale beautifully rendered and the frigid milieu should prove refreshing reading in the hot summer months. Steve Hamilton is an excellent writer but as much as I would miss Alex McKnight, it might be time for Steve to leave him alone in Paradise for awhile and create a standalone. That will be the best way to allow Steve the wider audience he so much deserves. Well recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Series for Summer Reading!
Review: Steve Hamilton was recently suggested to me as an author I would enjoy. I read this entire series straight through, and it was terrific!!! (Didn't hurt that it's HOT in South Louisiana, and the action takes place mostly in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the winter!) Alex is a great guy-- much like G.M. Ford's Leo Waterman, only in a parka. He can't let go of a question until he has the answer, and although he doesn't have a lot of friends, he will die before he lets one of them down. Start today with "A Cold Day in Paradise" and read your way through this great series, now while it's hot outside!
Rating:
Summary: 4+ As chilling as a frosty glass of lemonade on a hot
Review: summer's eve; ICE RUN has us ski-boarding after Alex McKnight in this latest of the Steve Hamilton's series. Just the pace of the book is enough to warm you! Let me tell you; if I found a hat (wouldn't matter what kind) on my doorstep with a note that read "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE"; I'd run for cover and stay there.
But not Alex! Off he goes in the worst snow storm of the season in the UP of Michigan; crossing the Canadian border every few hours as easily as I cross my t's. Back and forth in search of the story behind the old man who left the hat and the note outside his hotel room door and then proceeded to wander out into the way-below-zero night only to be found the next day frozen to death.
This all happens while he is rendevousing with a woman with whom he thinks he is in love, but for the life of him cannot figure out. One minute she is saying "Come here, Alex" and the next she is pushing him away and doesn't want to see him anymore. But...and this adds to the allure of the novel...the mystery revolves around HER and is slowly seeping into her everyday life from her very complicated past.
The forward rush of the prose seems to make a path through snow and ice...his bone-crushing opposition made my bones ache...his turmoil with Naltalie adds pathos...and of course his friends, as always, add character and color to an already exciting story line.
Steve Hamilton has never disappointed me. Although ICE RUN is the sixth of the series ; each novel, because of his superb and comprehensive style could easily stand alone.
I hope there is a lot more of Alex left in the talented pen of Steve Hamilton. Kudos to a great teller of tales mysterious and compelling!
Rating: 
Summary: A letdown
Review: The plot moves fast. The cold and snow of Michigan's UP feels real enough. And the book has its moments of good writing. Still, it almost seems that this is a repeat performance of the previous book in the series. There just doesn't feel as if there is anything new.If anything, the plot is too complicated for the hard-boiled genre. There are crimes in three different time periods, and it is difficult for the reader to keep events straight, to remember who was doing what and to whom. The violence is too much, too frequent and does little to the advance the plot. It almost seems that the author threw in a knock-down fight now and then when nothing else was happening. Violence can be useful in the proper dosage, but violence, per se, is not drama. Lastly, there should be a rule against having criminals confess to a tape recorder or VCR camera. This deus en [sic] machina device has been used far too many times by fiction writers, and I groan when I see it coming. It's just too easy a way out. The author uses it here in awkward fashion. I've read all of the Alex McKnight books and have enjoyed them, particularly the early ones, but this one is a letdown. I'll hope for better with the next one.
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