I've read and enjoyed two other books by this author - one a standalone ("The Girl Who Lived") and the other "Jack of Hearts," another in this series featuring private investigator and bounty hunter Jack Stratton. When I got a chance to read an advance copy of this one, saying yes was a no-brainer. Am I glad I did? You betcha; in fact, it's my favorite.
Some things have changed a bit, most notably that Jack and his fellow investigator, Alice, are now engaged to be married - though they haven't yet set a date. Alice is still grieving the years-ago loss of her parents in an auto hit-and-run; to help, she's asked a mercenary friend, Kiku, to try and track him down. Meanwhile, Jack is asked to get to the bottom of a suspicious death on the set of "Planet Survival," a popular realilty show. Jack decides the best way to go is undercover - the current show is being filmed atop Minuit Mountain in the middle of winter. Alice isn't happy about having to stay home, but the producer insists she can't add more than one person to the crew without causing undue notice.
Jack and the producer win out, leaving Alice to handle research chores, the progress of Kiku's investigation of her parents' death and taking care of Lady, Jack's gigantic King Shepherd. Actually, that was fine with me; Jack may be smitten, but I didn't much care for her from the git-go. And here, when Jack learns that she wants him to call her "darling" because that's what Jack's dad calls his mom, I actually hoped she'd defy orders, climb the mountain and get buried in an avalanche like the crew member whose death is being looked into.
But for better or worse, she's never in much danger. The same can't be said, though, for Jack. Up on that snowy mountain, Murphy's Law is not only alive, but well; what can go wrong does - and then some. From the initial gondola ride to the lodge, when Jack sees as rock painted with an Iroquois symbol for death, the action is pretty much nonstop. A killer blizzard - literally - keeps everyone chilling out in the dark as dead bodies start piling up. Clearly, someone's on a spree; can Jack find out who it is before everyone gets frosted?
The ending thrills, chills and brings a few surprises, making for an exciting read. Now I'll be eagerly awaiting the next installment (which the author says will be titled "Jack of Diamonds"). Bring it on!
Jack Frost by Christopher Greyson (Amazon Digital Services LLC, April 2018); 326 pp.
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