Night of the Ice Storm

by David Stout

Twenty years after Father John Barrow is clubbed to death on the night of an ice storm in the small town of Bessemer, New York, former employees of the town newspaper convene for a party and discover a chilling piece of evidence linked to the crime. Reprint.

Genres: Mystery, New York, Fiction, Mystery Thriller

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

David Stout (b. 1942) is an accomplished reporter who has been writing mysteries and true crime since the 1980s. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Stout took a job at the New York Times in 1982. He spent nearly twenty-eight years at the newspaper, as a reporter, editor and rewrite man covering national news and sports, and retired in 2009.

Stout began writing his first novel while working at the Times. Based on the true story of a 1940s double-murder for which fourteen year-old George Stinney was controversially executed, Carolina Skeletons (1988) won Stout an Edgar award for best first novel. After two more well-received mysteries, Night Of The Ice Storm (1991) and The Dog Hermit (1993), Stout turned to writing non-fiction. Night Of The Devil (2003) tells the story of famous convict Thomas Trantino, while The Boy In The Box (2008) is an investigation of one of America’s most famous unsolved murders. Since retiring from the Times, Stout has redoubled his work on his next book.

Reviews

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the midst of a terrible ice storm, a homosexual priest makes a clumsy and totally unexpected pass at a young man and ends up dead. Twenty years later, a clue to the murderer is uncovered at an office party at the small-town newspaper setting the killer in motion to protect himself.

The plot is a good idea, but the novel never quite came together for me. Part of the problem was the dialogue. The characters also felt flat. In the mystery itself, there was good misdirection and it held my attention wanting to find out who the murderer was. That was enough for me to be glad I read it.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two young men meet in a bar during the worst ice storm in a decade in Bessemer, New York. They develop a camaraderie over talk of golf and, after a few drinks, one of the men mentions he has built a driving range in his basement and would his new friend like to come along and see it. Making their way through the increasingly perilous storm, they wind up in the basement, worse the wear for drink, where the host reveals that he is a priest, this is a house owned by the diocese and goes on to make an awkward, drunken pass at his guest. Tow weeks later, the priest's dead, decaying body is found in his basement with a golf club smashed into his head. Twenty years later the novel begins.

With a crime this spectacular, this book should have been great. It was interesting for awhile as there are a number of suspects and a good case can be made for any one of them. Unfortunately, the characters are all stereotypical and flat - the homosexual priest, prejudiced cops (Irish on top of it), cynical, smart-mouthed journalist, rich publisher, vocal feminist, etc. The book also suffers from being terribly out of date with a vocabulary that would never be used today and is therefore distracting. Too bad because the opener is a real grabber.

[Linda M Phipps · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absorbing

I stayed with book all day, just to learn " who dun it". Characters were pretty well drawn and I liked how they ended up.