Review: Cold as Hell
Like many readers of Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton series, I was so glad when she created a spin-off series featuring all the same characters in a new settlement. Cold as Hell is the latest in the Haven’s Rock series and I. Could. Not. Put. It. Down. Seriously. It’s been so long since a book had captured my attention quite like this one and all I wanted to do was curl up with the novel and find out what really happened in town.
Here’s the book’s description:
Haven’s Rock is a sanctuary town hidden deep in the Yukon for those who need to disappear from the regular world. Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are starting a family now that they’ve settled into their life here. As Casey nears the end of her pregnancy, she lets nothing, including her worried husband, stop her from investigating what happens in the forbidden forest outside the town of Haven’s Rock.
When one of the town's residents is drugged and wanders too close to the edge of town, she’s dragged into the woods kicking and screaming. She’s saved in the nick of time, but the women of the town are alarmed. Casey and Eric investigate the assault just as a snowstorm hits Haven’s Rock, covering the forest. It’s there they find a frozen body, naked in the snow. With mixed accounts of the woman's last movements, the two begin to question who they can trust—and who they can't—in their seemingly safe haven.
A lot of the unputdownableness (yes, I’m gonna make up words) of this one was really due to *waves arms around* you know, the general state of the world. It was MUCH preferable to spend time in a town in Middle of Nowhere, Yukon where there was potentially a murderer on the loose than contemplate what’s happening in real life. But even setting aside the fact that I wanted to ignore reality, Armstrong created a really riveting story with Cold as Hell. I was so invested in the mystery and was on edge for the entire book. I was totally lost and had no idea who the murderer was or if there even WAS a murderer.
Armstrong’s created such a great cast of characters in this series. Casey and Dalton are the focus, of course, but I love checking in with all the secondary characters and seeing how they’re doing. There are a lot of them to keep track of and I imagine anyone coming into this series late in the game might get confused. Back stories are really important to these characters so do yourself a favour and start right back at the beginning with City of the Lost (full disclosure: I jumped into Rockton at book four so take that as you will.)
A note on trigger warnings: Casey is eight months pregnant at the start of the novel. She mentions a few past pregnancy scares - nothing in too much detail, but there was clearly a mental toll on both her and Dalton. She has false labour at one point in the book and the birth is described on the page.
If you’re a fan of mysteries, especially really thrilling ones, you’re going to want to read Cold as Hell. Even with all the murder and suspicion and worry, I had such a great time reading Kelley Armstrong’s latest book. I already cannot wait to get back to Haven’s Rock!
*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Minotaur, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*