Book Review for Frozen Statues, Perdition Games, by L.E. Fraser
Frozen Statutes, Perdition Games, by L.E. Fraser, is a psychological thriller about being stalked by remorse, with the sins of a terrifying past slowly but surely devouring you until there’s nothing left to feast on.
Sam McNamara is a private investigator who is haunted by former memories of her older sister’s death. When a body is found with black stones for eyes, she receives letters from a serial killer named Incubus, who observes how similar his style of killings were to this new killer’s. Age old grudges resurface, and with her fears slowly closing in on her, Sam is locked in a war between her sanity and paranoia. With time running out and the body count growing higher, Sam must use her wits to try and outsmart the killer, before she herself is killed.
I loved Sam. She was written in a way that balanced out her guilt with her hope for the future. Although there were times she allowed her arrogance to take over, in the end she does care about her loved ones, so much so she torments herself with Joyce’s death just to keep remembering her. But because of that, she is also isolated, trapped in her thoughts and emotions while endeavoring to move on with her life. Reece, on the other hand, was a bit of an enigma. While it’s clear that Reece is devoted to Sam, when he realized that he had a connection to this new serial killer, it was as if he shut down. It was like all his dirty little secrets were exposed for Sam to see, so he tried to ignore it, as though they’d go away if he paid no attention to it. It’s partly the reason why their relationship struggled as it did. Still, even though they had their many insecurities, they’ve pulled themselves together to make sure the other was okay. The couple was well developed and realistic. They paralleled with several other relationships in the book, such as Eli and Danny, and even Bart and Angel.
These relationships, however, contrasts with the serial killer and her father themselves. She was willing to carry out horrific murders and conduct psychological warfare, all in her father’s name. I felt she died because she loved her father too much; that tainted, twisted love that allowed her to take the lives of so many, was what made her throw her life away. Her father, of course, was hollow; instead, he was fixated on Sam, who wanted nothing to do with him. Still, I can’t try to understand them. Unlike other characters in the book, they danced with Death himself, and led him down a bloody path of mayhem.
One last thing that haunted me was the lily on the Incubus’s victims. Throughout the book, there were people who lied to themselves, trying to pretend that everything was well. It was like they were dreaming of sweet nothingness. It was ironic, because the serial killer’s name, Incubus, was also the name of a demon who would come to disturb sleeping women. This killer disturbs his victims the same way, leaving them a small lily, as if to wish them a blissful, eternal slumber after the nightmarish ordeal he put them through. An interesting tidbit of the lily is that it represents the soul leaving after death, and thus has restored its innocence. It was troubling to me, considering that Sam’s older sister was one of the victims.
Thus, I would give this book a rating of a 4.8 out of 5 stars. The characters and relationship parallels were extraordinary, as was Fraser’s creative way of intertwining dreams with nightmares. The lily was used in a way that added to the book’s macabre charm. Because of this, I would recommend this book to fans of Lara’s Journal by A. Gavazzoni.
