Ice Run

by Steve Hamilton

Thomas Dunne Books, June, 2004.
Hardcover, 320 pages.
ISBN: 0312301219

Ice Run by Steve Hamilton

This sixth entry in the bestselling Alex McKnight series finds Alex in a heap of trouble. For one thing, he has fallen like a ton of bricks for Natalie Reynaud, the Canadian cop from Blood in the Sky. But Alex's friends are less than thrilled with the situation and warn him against the romance. But Alex, hard-headed as people tend to be in these situations, books a romantic weekend away with Natalie, who is on leave from the Ontario Provincial Police. A cryptic note in an old Homburg hat left outside their hotel room by a mysterious elderly man that seemed to be shadowing the couple raises Alex's hackles and his cop's instincts. The note says, "I know who you are" but Natalie is less than forthcoming about the mystery. His investigation plunges him deep in the local history and the enmity that exists between two families. Leon Prudell, his former partner in the PI business helps Alex out, but it's not enough to save Alex from a brutal beating. Meanwhile, things with Natalie aren't going so well. In fact, his love life seems to be as cold as the subzero winters in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where Alex lives.

Steve Hamilton has a lean prose style which works especially well for this gripping crime story which has more than a does of noir. The setting of the U.S.- Canadian border in winter provides the perfect backdrop for the fast-paced action and believable characters who inhabit this literate crime thriller.

--Claire E. White

Ice Run is available for purchase on Amazon.com

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This review was published in the September-October, 2004 of The Internet Writing Journal.