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Britt Montero, Miami's top fiction crime reporter, is back on the scene and her beat -- crime in South Florida - is still hot, hot, hot. However, in Edna Buchanan's latest mystery, Miami heat comes face-to-face with chilling conditions.
When Britt goes to a jewelry store where police have found a dead body, it seems she has an interesting story about a jinxed burglar. But nothing in her Miami is that simple. The deceased burglar's scarred body sparks a detective's memory, leading Britt and the cops on a journey for truth and justice. The detective, Craig Burch, is part of the Cold Case Squad and his mission is to solve old crimes. Years before, as a homicide detective, he investigated the kidnapping and murder of a teenager, Ricky Chance.
Chance didn't survive, but his date, Sunny Hartley, lived to tell about her beating and brutal rape. Part of her survival meant leaving the memories behind and immersing herself in her sculptures of ice and stone, leading Britt to dub her the Ice Maiden. It's up to Britt and the Cold Case Squad to draw her out to get closer to the killers.
During their hunt for the truth, Britt gets on the wrong side of the cops and has to navigate newspaper politics to keep the story alive. She continues to throw all of her energy into the story and solving the mystery, and she takes compensatory time off to finish the job.
In getting the job done, Buchanan paints a vivid image of Miami's underside and the contradictions of the city. Her tales of the city weave together Santeria, Miami's wealthy elite, Cubans, Anglos and African Americans. Buchanan's penchant for including all of Miami's people is one of the strengths of the series.
She also brings her realistic style to each of the twists in the novel, making each murder and crime seem as if it's excerpted from your morning paper. Buchanan's style and experience (she won a Pulitzer as a Miami crime reporter) make her novels stronger than many mystery series.
For Britt's fans, this outing, which ties up some of the loose ends in her life, will be a bittersweet read. The usual suspects in Britt's life appear, including Kendall McDonald, Lottie, Onnie and the her newsroom nemesis, Gretchen. Those new to Britt's world of deadlines, corpses and subtropical drama will find it a good, topical novel. However it is not the best Buchanan has to offer. She, as I imagine many contemporary authors have, refers to September 11th and the national crisis throughout THE ICE MAIDEN. Since it has so little bearing on the Miami crime scene, the references are shallow and distracting. There's also a bit of a hole left after the case is solved, and it's disappointing to catch that in an otherwise surprising tale.
The surprise, which I won't give away, makes the hunt for the killers worth following. As is Britt Montero, a worthy amateur sleuth and heroine. Buchanan's shocker of an ending hints that there are new directions in store for the character and the series. Let's hope what follows is worth looking over the flaws in THE ICE MAIDEN.
--- Reviewed by Bernadette Adams Davis
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