4.5 star thriller lite.
I thought I had read all of Tess Gerritsen’s “Rizzoli & Isles” books, but I was wrong. There were a few that I missed, and ICE COLD was one of them. I classify them as “thriller lite” because the level of writing is fairly simple, but this is a series that I have thoroughly enjoyed over the years and it is, perhaps, just a bit deeper in terms of theme than the usual thriller lite.
I cannot understand the low ratings given by some readers of this book unless these readers expected the theme to be as simple as the TV series based on this series. I have never watched the TV series and don’t intend to because I have seen pictures of the two actresses who play Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles. These actresses are conventionally pretty, like most TV actresses, but the written Rizzoli and Isles characters are not conventionally pretty. They are not unattractive, but their looks are unique, something that is not captured by the TV actresses playing these parts. I assume that the plots of these shows are also much more conventional than the books.
The plot of ICE COLD in a nutshell: Maura Isles, unhappy with the way her romance with Daniel, a priest, is evolving (or not evolving) in Boston, impulsively joins a group of four others on a one-day vacation trip after attending a conference in Wyoming. She had met the group leader years earlier while taking a university course and barely remembers him. She soon realizes that taking this trip was a mistake, as her four companions bicker among themselves; they all have known each other for years and have deep-seated issues with each other. Then the SUV they are driving goes into a ditch in what appears to be the middle of nowhere, and the five travellers end up in a deserted town named “Kingdom Come”. That is when strange things start happening.
Jane Rizzoli comes into the picture when Daniel tells her that Maura didn’t return from the conference as scheduled, and soon after, Jane is told that Maura’s body has been found with three others in a burned SUV that had fallen down a hill. The body is burned so badly that it is unrecognizable.
But this is primarily Maura’s story, as we, the readers, know she is alive.
There are three separate villain groups in this story, plus a murderer bent on vengeance, and the separate groups are drawn together because of an accident, an accident that killed over 40 people — including many women and children.
The book begins with one of the villainous groups — a polygamist group that practises child abuse and is led by a charismatic “prophet”. To describe the other two villainous groups would go into spoiler territory, as we don’t find out about one of them until around 65% in the book, and don’t discover their motive until near the end of the book. Likewise, the murderer bent on vengeance is not revealed until near the end of the story.
My major criticism is that the third villain group, also revealed near the end, is not dealt with at all in the story. It remains as “maybe will be dealt with” brief mention.
So, there are several complex themes, but all are handled in a “thriller lite” form — no in-depth analysis of these themes. Still it is a fun “thriller lite” to read because it takes many twists. It does help if a reader has read some of the earlier Rizzoli and Isles books, because the complex relationships among Maura, Jane, Jane’s FBI husband, Daniel, and Sansone are not described in detail. Maura’s mother is mentioned in a couple of sentences, sentences that would not make sense to a reader unfamiliar with the series.
I am dismayed that a negative review that received many “likes” stated that “several secondary characters [are] developed and then deserted”. I assume that this reviewer is referring to Maura’s four companions on her ill-fated trip, and we definitely know what happened to them. They were not just “deserted” 1/3 through the story.
So yes, I highly recommend ICE COLD. And for those who have never read a Rizzoli & Isles book, I recommend the series as good thriller lite reading. Note that I don’t care for the author’s other books, which she wrote prior to starting the Rizzoli & Isles series and are being re-released by her publisher. Tess Gerritsen is an adequate, but not great, writer, and until she created Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles, her books were pedestrian.