Short, Light And Entertaining Police Procedural | “Her Frozen Cry” by Carolyn Arnold (2022) Book Review

Having read the latest book in the Brandon Fisher series and really liked it, I went into “Her Frozen Cry” by Carolyn Arnold with high expectations. I am happy to say the author has managed to satisfy my expectations adequately.

“Her Frozen Cry” is the latest in her Detective Amanda Steele series of books. I haven’t read the other books in the series and it was a slight handicap considering the frequent references to events occurring in the previous books. But it didn’t take away from my overall experience with the book, so it didn’t matter much.

Detective Amanda Steele is called in to investigate the murder of Alicia Gordon, the founder and owner of a successful cosmetic company. As in any murder, the spouse is the first suspect of the investigative team; but the fact that Steele knew the victim’s husband Tony personally, from earlier, makes her question his culpability and widen her investigation to other channels as well.

The murder of another woman in a similar manner challenges Steele’s theory of a marital disturbance and all roads lead to the supposed sale of the company. Who killed these women and what’s their motive in doing it forms the crux of the story. There are many other small stories branching from the main investigation, elucidating the lives of the various people in Steele’s team; the author does a good job of humanizing those people to us. We care for their lives, their predicaments and feel the need to help them with their troubles. Most importantly, Steele seems to be having intriguing connections with many people; I quite liked the interactions between her and her colleague/partner Trent.

The story has been written in a typical police investigational format with some thrill elements thrown in. I can’t say I didn’t expect where the story was going — the mystery was quite easy to guess, even with the clever red-herrings thrown in. But Arnold has managed to present this all-too predictable story in an interesting package; that makes the book all the more enjoyable and entertaining. This book also has a slightly lighter mood than the other books I have read of the same type and that increases its likeability too.

I would totally recommend this book for a light, fast-paced and short police investigative reading experience.

This book gets 5 out of 5 stars.