Miss Frost Solves a Cold Case by Kristen Painter
Miss Frost Solves a Cold Case by Kristen Painter
Kristen Painter uses her Nocturne Falls setting for the first in a series of mysteries, rather than the straight romances that have enjoyed the setting to this point. The tone of these books reminded me a lot of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series—first person narrative, snappy chatter, and a love triangle with lots of heat but, at least for now, no consummation. The result is a very fun book with a solid mystery grounded in the supernatural denizens of Nocturne Falls.
The town (Nocturne Falls) is a community in which hundreds or possibly even thousands of supernatural folk live year round, fitting in in part because the town is a tourist trap that celebrates Halloween 365 days a year, providing lots of cover for its supernatural denizens. Most of those supernaturals seem to be very nice, but this series is going to offer the opportunity to see the other side (the more common side in other urban fantasies) of the coin.
Jayne Frost is the daughter of Jack Frost (the Winter King) and the niece of Santa Clause, so she’s a pretty hefty supernatural winter elf herself. But the royalty hasn’t gone to her head and she makes a charming protagonist as she is off on her own encountering vampires and werewolves and her old boyfriend, Cooper, a summer elf with a surfer dude’s body and attitude.
A lot of the fun in this first novel is simply discovering with Jayne her place in this supernatural society. One of Santa’s toyshops is losing elves right and left and Jayne is tasked with figuring out why. It takes a while, even after she learns that it is almost certainly something bad happening to the elves (why else would they leave all of their belongings behind when they go?) for Jayne to really get serious about her investigation, but that urgency is lost in figuring out how one of Santa’s toyshops works and why winter elves need so many sweets to keep them going through the day. (Note to Ms. Painter, Dr. Pepper is a wonderful soda, but if Jayne is really looking for sweet calories, she should become a Mountain Dew aficionado. Not only is it the sweetest soda out there, it comes in lots of flavors.)
The actual reason for the disappearances turns creepy fast, and Painter handles this transition with consummate skill, switching back to her more lighthearted tone before the book can truly be transformed by the ugliness Jayne uncovers. All in all, this was a great novel with a totally satisfying ending.
