The Ice Maiden : A Britt Montero Mystery

Rating:
Summary: One of the best yet
Review: Absolutely one of the best. I should have been getting the house ready for company but instead read this book all day long. (And I'm not sorry so there.) Really really good, a perfect pace.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best mystery Edna Buchanan has to offer
Review: Britt Montero, Miami's top fiction crime reporter, is back on the scene and her beat -- crime in South Florida - is still hot, hot, hot. However, in Edna Buchanan's latest mystery, Miami heat comes face-to-face with chilling conditions.

When Britt goes to a jewelry store where police have found a dead body, it seems she has an interesting story about a jinxed burglar. But nothing in her Miami is that simple. The deceased burglar's scarred body sparks a detective's memory, leading Britt and the cops on a journey for truth and justice. The detective, Craig Burch, is part of the Cold Case Squad and his mission is to solve old crimes. Years before, as a homicide detective, he investigated the kidnapping and murder of a teenager, Ricky Chance.

Chance didn't survive, but his date, Sunny Hartley, lived to tell about her beating and brutal rape. Part of her survival meant leaving the memories behind and immersing herself in her sculptures of ice and stone, leading Britt to dub her the Ice Maiden. It's up to Britt and the Cold Case Squad to draw her out to get closer to the killers.

During their hunt for the truth, Britt gets on the wrong side of the cops and has to navigate newspaper politics to keep the story alive. She continues to throw all of her energy into the story and solving the mystery, and she takes compensatory time off to finish the job.

In getting the job done, Buchanan paints a vivid image of Miami's underside and the contradictions of the city. Her tales of the city weave together Santeria, Miami's wealthy elite, Cubans, Anglos and African Americans. Buchanan's penchant for including all of Miami's people is one of the strengths of the series.

She also brings her realistic style to each of the twists in the novel, making each murder and crime seem as if it's excerpted from your morning paper. Buchanan's style and experience (she won a Pulitzer as a Miami crime reporter) make her novels stronger than many mystery series.

For Britt's fans, this outing, which ties up some of the loose ends in her life, will be a bittersweet read. The usual suspects in Britt's life appear, including Kendall McDonald, Lottie, Onnie and the her newsroom nemesis, Gretchen. Those new to Britt's world of deadlines, corpses and subtropical drama will find it a good, topical novel. However, it is not the best Buchanan has to offer. She, as I imagine many contemporary authors have, refers to September 11th and the national crisis throughout THE ICE MAIDEN. Since it has so little bearing on the Miami crime scene, the references are shallow and distracting. There's also a bit of a hole left after the case is solved, and it's disappointing to catch that in an otherwise surprising tale.

The surprise, which I won't give away, makes the hunt for the killers worth following. As is Britt Montero, a worthy amateur sleuth and heroine. Buchanan's shocker of an ending hints that there are new directions in store for the character and the series. Let's hope what follows is worth looking over the flaws in THE ICE MAIDEN.

--- Reviewed by Bernadette Adams Davis

Rating:
Summary: Good diversion but Nothing Special
Review: I think I should start off and say that I am not a "mystery reader" as such. I don't follow a particular series and this is the only mystery I have read by Edna Buchanan. I found the read to be quick and diverting. However, I found some of her "fringe" characters more intriguing than her main characters. In fact---I wanted to know more about Sunny's parents and what makes them tick. Also Ms. Buchanan never made me care who raped Sunny and killed her boyfriend. I had no problem setting this book aside a while and coming back. Also I couldn't help but see her detective as a watered down version of Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta. And when the "bad guy" is finally found, I found it very unlikely in the sense that it wasn't solved by the police years ago. Short way to put it: Not believable. But the book is worth a read if you want something light and quick. If you want to almost grieve when the book ends----this is not a good choice.

Rating:
Summary: What a Story! Ice Maiden Sent Shivers Through My Spine!
Review: Not since the very first book in the Britt Montero series, have I ever been so entranced with a story. I absolutely could not put it down. Ice Maiden is a fantastic read with all the ups and downs that you expect to get with an Edna Buchanan roller coaster ride. But just when you think you've got it figured out, she throws in another turn in the track. Congratulations to Edna. One of the best crime/ Mystery writers that I have ever had the pleasure to read. I just hope another book is in the works. Don't let it end like this for Britt!!!...

Rating:
Summary: What a Story! Ice Maiden Sent Shivers Through My Spine!
Review: Not since the very first book in the Britt Montero series, have I ever been so entranced with a story. I absolutely could not put it down. Ice Maiden is a fantastic read with all the ups and downs that you expect to get with an Edna Buchanan roller coaster ride. But just when you think you've got it figured out, she throws in another turn in the track. Congratulations to Edna. One of the best crime/ Mystery writers that I have ever had the pleasure to read. I just hope another book is in the works. Don't let it end like this for Britt!!!...

Rating:
Summary: Life Isn't Fair
Review: The wrong people die in this book. Good people suffer. Bad people prosper. And it all happens in the aftermath of 9/11. THE ICE MAIDEN is about surviving, about getting past life's monumental injustices and taking the good that's left. The mystery itself -- what happened to beautiful young Sunny Hartley and her boyfriend Ricky in that field on Christmas Eve so many years ago -- is brutal and sad and includes a shocking plot twist. This installment in the Britt Montero series expands our heroine's love life and work relationships in very credible, very moving ways. I recommend this for those who want a book that's about more than the crime that's a catalyst for the storytelling.

Rating:
Summary: Life Isn't Fair
Review: There are some books that are fairly good in a mystery sense even though once again the author is overall depressing in tone and subject matter. Then every now and then, there is a book that has such a twist at the end; the book becomes a horrible book. When a major character over a number of novels is killed off needlessly just when things were going better as another reminder how capricious life is. Considering the fact that Edna Buchanan's books always have frequent references to the capriciousness of life, this is one story telling idea she should have discarded. This book has a simply horrible ending and there is no other way to put it.

As the book opens, a repeat offender has been electrocuted while attempting to drop through the ceiling of a Cuban owned store. The storeowner for years had tried to get help from the Miami Police force, but with little success. So, he wired his ceiling intending to give the burglar a small shock and send him on his way. Instead, the man was electrocuted and has to be extricated by Fire Rescue before he takes a trip to the morgue. Soon the District Attorney's office decides to prosecute the storeowner for murder during an election year despite the fact that the dead man has a long history of crime.

In fact, his body provides a major clue that leads to a case from over fourteen years ago at Christmas when two teenagers were attacked and left for dead. While Ricky died, Sunny was beaten, raped and shot in head and somehow survived. The case created an intense wave of publicity years ago and while a massive manhunt was undertaken, no one was ever identified or charged in the case. The ripples of that night have ruined so many lives and still haunt the survivors because murder affects everyone who knew the deceased person.

The dead burglar is quickly identified and soon it becomes apparent that he was involved in the horrific events so long ago. There are others involved and they have their suspicions as to who they are, but thanks to politics, the Cold Case Squad can't actively investigate. But Sergeant Burch convinces Brit Montero to help work the case with them while ostensibly covering the squad for a profile section of the paper. She of course agrees and soon the nightmare of the past is given new life today.

With frequent references to the terrorist attacks and their aftermath, as well as other novels of the series that had their own pain and suffering, this read is a mostly depressing book. That coupled with an absolute horrible ending for long time fans and readers of the series make this book simply one to ignore in the store.

Rating:
Summary: One of her best
Review: They're back; all our favorites...Britt, Kendall, Lottie, etc. This is an action packed adventure involving cold case files. A brutal murder/rape of two innocent teens happened years ago. It changed forever the lives of everyone involved.

HOWEVER, I feel like the anti-heroine of Stephen King's "Misery." Edna's done and gone kilt off one of the recurring characters. NO!!! How could you?? Life in Miami will never be the same now.

Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER WINNER FROM THIS WHIZ BANG AUTHOR
Review: When it comes to crime novels Buchanan's the best. After almost 20 years of covering the police beat for a Miami newspaper she knows her subject and suspects well. She's a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter with insider knowledge, and potent pen.

"The Ice Maiden" is heroine Britt Montero's eighth spin, and it is a pulse pounding thriller. She's right there when Andre Coney, a would-be robber, is discovered after being electrocuted by a jewelry store booby trap. A quick thinking detective with a full memory bank ties the deceased to a 14 year-old murder case in which two teenagers on their first date were ravaged - the boy was fatally shot and the girl was raped and beaten.

Britt attempts to interrogate the girl, Sunny, hoping that she might recognize any of Coney's fellow thugs as one of the men who had attacked her. Understandably, Sunny wants no part in reopening past trauma.

However, the frightened young woman has no choice as others who may harm her focus on what was thought to be a cold case.

As always with Buchanan, subplots flourish and fascinate while readers are propelled by surprising secrets revealed. One more winner for this whiz bang writer.