In book number four, we return to Minneapolis and a winter wonderland that doesn't want to quit. I've lived in Minnesota for 35 years - Mpls for 20 of those and Duluth the remainder. If you get a snowfall as described, you won't be driving all over the state. Major highways will be difficult to navigate. Minor highways probably impassable. County roads...best to stay home. City streets will not be plowed yet (snow emergency first day, then secondary streets, and the rest the third. Be prepared to spend a lot of time shoveling out your car.)Yet, we find our good homicide detectives making repeated trips to this northern county because everything keeps pointing them to a secluded business that is more than it appears. What is a corporation on the outside, hides a refuge for 400 battered women behind its fences. A small enclave kept secret from the wider populace, designed to protect and shelter, has now been thrust into the limelight of a murder investigation. I had some difficulty with the plausibility of book number four between the snowstorm and this secret enclave called Bitterroot. 400 people living, working, raising kids, doing day to day activities - in a county not all that far north of a major metropolitan area – simply could not be kept under wraps. That’s a fair sized community. Kids talk. Increased traffic of both commuters and supply trucks. Planes that fly over. Just didn’t quite make the bell ring true for me. The blurb also describes this as being a Monkeewrench novel: When the corpses of three police officers are discovered entombed in snowmen, Grace MacBride and her team of crime-busting computer jocks at the Monkeewrench firm are called in to assist. What they discover is a terrifying link among the victims that reaches beyond the badge and crosses the line between hard justice and stone cold vengeance. I found their roll in this book to be pretty minimal; it’s not about Grace McBride and the gang, it’s about Bitterroot and what hides behind those fences. So. Why am I still reading? Darn it if I don’t like the characters and the humor. Some of the one liners and observations are just brilliant. I also give points for the unconventional ending; which I won’t describe because that would be a major spoiler.
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.
What do You think about Snow Blind (2006)?
In this fourth book of the Minnesota-based Monkeewrench series, the corpses of two cops are found disguised as snowmen in a park. When a third body similarly staged is found in the rural upstate region, it seems it might be a serial killer case.Minneapolis detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth head up the investigation in the Twin Cities, with the assistance of the close-knit tech wizards – the Monkeewrench gang. The story also pulls in Iris Rikker, the inexperienced new sheriff of the county where the third body is found.Plot-wise, Snow Blind is not as thrilling, edge-of-your-seat as the first three of the Monkeewrench series. Even so, it is still satisfying and twisty. The detectives are thrown by some unexpected moral complexity.I really liked the new character of Iris Rikker. At first, her inexperience is frustrating as you want this beleaguered new sheriff to instantly find her feet and prove her naysayers wrong. But it doesn’t work quite like that and I like how P. J. Tracy gradually revealed the truth of Rikker’s position. I also liked how you can’t tell whether her Sheriff Lieutenant, Lt. Sampson, is going to be her ally or detractor. I hope that Rikker shows up in later books, just as I hope for the return again of Wisconsin detective Mike Halloran and deputy Sharon Mueller.Strangely enough, the characters that make up the Monkeewrench gang are not my favorite part of the Monkeewrench series. The authors have fun describing their quirks and clothing choices and their tech wizardry, but it’s always the cops that I want to read more about.
—Christy
This is not my favorite P.J. Tracy novel but it was still an interesting read. You get a real feel for a Minnesota winter as the snow does not let up. It is an exciting and cleverly constructed police procedural but sadly no resolution to the murders. Just something to think about. Although, the ending was a bit of a disappointment, I still enjoyed the humor of Gino and Magozzi. If you like your crime novel mixed with sharp edged humor, read this book. I look forward to the next P.J. Tracy novel and hope they are busy writing as I do enjoy this series.
—Eadie
I've read a couple of books by PJ Tracy over the years and really enjoyed them (this Mother and Daughter writing team remind me a lot of Harlan Coben, one of my favourite authors, in their writing style) but for some reason I never got around to reading any more. 'Snow Blind' pulled me straight in and wouldn't let me go until I'd reached the very last page; no matter how hard I tried or how much I needed to get on with other things I just couldn't stop turning the pages.The story sent me off in all directions, twisting and turning so much I had no idea who or what was responsible for the crimes committed. I absolutely loved it and I loved the ending, it was very cleverly put together and somehow managed to complete the story but also leave it open for me, as the reader, to think about what could or should happen to those responsible. Fantastic read and highly recommended.
—Shay Noble
