Miss Frost Ices the Imp by Kristin Painter

Miss Frost Ices the Imp by Kristin Painter

Miss Frost returns for her second adventure in what proved to be a more light-hearted mystery, but one that still showed the darker underside of Nocturne Falls. The plot is extremely straightforward. Having moved to Nocturne Falls, Miss Frost visits an estate sale to help her furnish her apartment and purchases a decorative box that wasn’t supposed to be for sale. The box is knocked over in her apartment releasing an imp—a chaotic and mischievous spirit which begins wreaking playful but annoying havoc on the town that threatens to reveal their supernatural secrets. (For example, it’s hard to explain how the fire engine truck got on top of the fire station.)

 

In trying to figure out how to get the imp back in the box, Miss Frost is forced to learn about the woman who previously owned the box—a human who ran a business in magical artifacts and who doesn’t appear to have had a good deed in mind when she acquired the imp.

 

All in all, this is another fun book in the Nocturne Falls setting. Jane Frost continues to positively remind me of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum. She’s far more competent than Stephanie, but she’s gathering a group of zany collaborating friends and she has the same sort of man problems. The one thing that surprised me most about the novel was the reappearance of Frost’s ex-best friend, Lark. It makes me wonder if Ms. Painter is planning a future novel around the treacherous pal. I guess I’ll have to keep reading to find out.