Someone is killing cops and hiding the bodies in snowmen created for a children’s snow festival in Minneapolis. The Monkeewrench software gang are enlisted to help (although they play a relatively minor role in this novel.)As a recovering northern Minnesota resident. I loved the descriptions of winter, the intense desire for a garage while trying to pry the car door open and chipping off several inches of ice from the windshield; the felon who puts his car in a ditch without a blizzard kit (only those dumb enough to go out in a blizzard are too dumb to have a blizzard kit) and then trudges through the snow (never, ever, leave your car is another constantly repeated mantra) to find a lake (you can always find a lake) where there will inevitably be some kind of building (another given is that every lake has some kind of lodge around it at 10 foot intervals) and realize that he may freeze to death at the relatively warm temperature of 15 degrees which would be absolutely way too embarrassing.
Shift scenes to newly-elected-sheriff, ex-English-teacher, Iris Ricker, her first day on the job, and resented by just about every deputy in the county, in a blinding blizzard, who has to deal with two hardened Mpls. homicide detectives, Gino and Magozzi, and an sympathetic lieutenant Sampson, when they discover another snowman containing a body. (The felon who happened to be hiding in her barn was a bit too much of a coincidence.) Ricker and the relationship between the two homicide cops is what elevates this book above the usual. I loved the back-seat-driving of Gino who’s terrified at driving in the snow on the way up to the crime scene from Minneapolis. They take Kettering Hill to get to the sheriff’s office. (“No one ever takes Kettering Hill in the winter,” notes the helpful dispatcher after they arrive, white-knuckled.)
Some interesting characters and I loved the setting. Very well read by Mel Foster.
