The Girl In The Ice - Robert Bryndza

The Girl In The Ice

(4.5 / 5)

Bookoture have released some of my absolute favourite books over the past year. They really hit the mark when they picked the authors to publish lately! Kathryn Croft and Angela Marsons are two great ones, and I’m so pleased to add Robert Bryndza to the list! Fantastic book!

The Girl In the Ice is the first of what will be the DCI Erika Foster series. Erika is a Detective Inspector who comes back to work after time off following a fumbled drug raid, where her police officer husband was killed. Harbouring a lot of guilt and not the woman she once was, Erika has to step into the lead investigating role of a highly publicised murder investigation. Andrea, wealthy socialite and daughter of a prominent businessman, was found under the ice, brutally murdered. Erika has to find a killer, while weaving around some interesting police politics, and trying to pull her life back together.

I really enjoyed The Girl In The Ice. I love a good police procedural thriller. I really enjoy trying to figure out who the killer is before the climax. And I always add points to books who make me guess all the way to the end! I was forced to guess with this one! Had NO IDEA who did it until the very end and that is quite rare for me – I think because I read so many of them I’m quite good at picking it. Bryndza gave nothing away and I was as shocked as the characters were as to who did it!

The writing was fantastic! There were a few unbelievable elements of the story where I thought “They would never let her do that” or something similar, but it didn’t detract from the story at all. I also really liked the dark and dreary Southern London setting. The atmosphere at times reminded me of the Lacey Flint Series, which is my favourite series of all time.

I really enjoyed all the characters. Erika was a great character, as were Peterson, Moss, Marsh and Sparks! I think there is going to be more rivalry with Sparks in the next books! Thought the storyline was great and the large list of suspects was frustrating! In a good way! I suspected anyone and everyone to be the killer!

I tend to prefer my thrillers to have a dash of romance. That was obviously impossible in Erika’s case as she had only just lost her husband. But I am hoping that in future novels, Erika moves ahead with her life.

Overall I really enjoyed it! I devoured the whole thing. It had some creepy moments, thrilling moments and many moments that made me laugh. Absolutely an author to look out for! I will have to check out his other work, I have heard he is quite a good chick lit writer, believe it or not!! However I see more thrillers in the future!