When Darby O’Roarke wakes up in a strange house with a dead man – with no memory of what happened – she knows who she has to call: FBI Supervisory Special Agent Eban Winters…the man she fell for, and who rejected her, last summer.
A negotiator isn’t supposed to get involved with kidnap victims, and Eban has been trying to avoid the temptation that is Darby O’Roarke ever since they met. One frantic phone call has him racing to Alaska to uncover the truth, but he faces stubborn opposition from the local police, and a growing media frenzy.
Getting Darby released from jail and keeping her safe is his first priority. When another woman is brutally slain, evidence emerges that suggests Darby is being framed, and that the culprit is a vicious serial killer who has eluded the FBI for more than a decade…and, now, the killer has Darby in their sights.
Review:
When Darcy O’Rourke wakes up alone in a house with a dead body and no idea how she got there or what happened, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Eban Winters drops everything to fly to Alaska to help her. He has his work cut out for him, with a local police force who is convinced of her guilt, a community who suspects the worst, and the actual killer who seems to have Darcy in their sights for…reasons. Eban’s going to need all the help he can get to keep Darcy safe and catch the real killer…before it’s too late.
Darcy and Eban actually met a few books ago ([book:Colder Than Sin|52225360]–which of course is the only series book I haven’t read yet–but the characters get you caught up here, so no worries), and though they felt an undeniable attraction, their age difference and his position as an agent versus hers as a kidnap victim had Eban putting the brakes on any kind of a relationship.
But this is a romantic suspense–so we know that’s not going to hold, right? 😉
I listened to Cold As Ice as an audiobook–and I’m not going to lie, I found myself making excuses to keep listening, because OMG I needed finally hear how Darcy and Eban would get together–and of course, I needed to know who the killer was and make sure that our MCs were safe at last. As she often does, [author:Toni Anderson|2820461] gave us several scenes from the killer’s POV, ratcheting up the tension and inspiring my detective instincts. (Seriously. I was listening to those parts especially carefully, comparing what the killer knew to what various suspects should have known at that point. Spoiler alert: I still didn’t guess who dunnit. Darn it.)
Darcy and Eban’s romance was ultimately very satisfying, even though I wasn’t familiar with their origin story (I will be, though–I definitely need to read Quentin and Haley’s, after seeing them here and knowing now that Darby and Eban will end up together). Though the mystery of the killer was well developed and the climax was edge-of-your-seat exciting, the villain themselves seemed rather, well, OTT villainish–I don’t know that I’m quite convinced that the person threatening our heroes at the end can really be the same serial killer mastermind who had so successfully evaded law enforcement for so many years. Still, though, our MCs have a very satisfying ending, and OMG, the suspense of this book absolutely kept me reading.
All in all Cold As Ice was a solid reading (OK, listening) experience, and I can’t wait to see what Ms Anderson has in store for us next!
Rating: 4 stars / A
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.