pattieod's review against another edition
2.0
nalian's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? No
3.5
rclz's review against another edition
2.0
salarjay's review against another edition
4.0
bobf2d33's review against another edition
3.0
dsteinman55's review against another edition
3.0
nocto's review
(On all detectives having upsetting pasts) I think books need to be about interesting people, and it's possiblethat people with "upsetting pasts" are, all other things being equal,more interesting to us as readers than those without. That said, offthe top of my head I can only think of Matt Scudder that fits thedescription. Who else is there?
(On Alex's emotional baggage)I get the impression that before the book opened he had more or lessdealt with the situation by running away to the cabin, by burying thepast, he'd forgotten all about it. The guilt wasn't part of his day today life any longer.
Seeing a dead body (and a rather gruesomely executed one at that) andgetting involved in a murder case has brought the buried past to lifefor him in the present day. Added to that is that the murderer of hispartner seems to be involved in this series of murders too. That'spretty frightening stuff to come up against so long after the firstevent.
I don't think that he should blame himself for the past, I can't see howhe or Franklin could have done anything different. But I can see thathe would blame himself, wouldn't anybody wonder if they had just donesomething slightly different that day then perhaps everything would haveturned out different? (I'll stop that train of thought before I driftinto chaos theory and bore you all to death...)
I think "running away" was a reasonable thing to do. It didn't soundlike he had much going for him in Detroit, his job was kaputt, his wifehad left him; I think going and living in his fathers cabin in (notquite) the middle of nowehere was a fair response to the situation. Itseemed to have worked out fairly well up until now.
I don't really think he needs any "help". He's certainly got problemsbut I don't think they are insurmountable or long lasting. I think oncethis case is over he'll be ok again, and probably better off than beforesince I hope some of his demons, to do with Rose, will be exorcised bythe end of the book.
I like him so far, he seems like a decent man and he didn't exactly askto get tangled up in the situation he's in.
The murders had better have something to do with Rose else I'm going tobe mightily annoyed at the amount of flashbacks to the Rose case thatwe're getting! I don't think Alex is obsessed, just upset and scared bythe connections to his shooting.
I think it's a setup of some kind, but I can't figure out who would knowenough to do so as Alex doesn't think he's told anyone. Maybe he's beentalking in his sleep to Sylvia. That seems like a reasonable guess tome, and she's nasty enough that i don't mind her murdering people.
(On how I would catch the killer) (On sense of place) From the snowy pic on the cover I thought the book was going to be niceand cool and an escape from the summer sun, but I haven't really got anysense of place or chilliness from the book. Apart from the log cabins,which sound rather pleasant, I haven't got an image of any of theoutside places in my head.
Oh, set up a trap with me as the bait, lure the killer in to it, thenget them to confess all by professing to know exactly what happened whenI don't. No, perhaps not. I'll gather everybody within a hundred mileradius into my cabin and recreate the crime - the murderer will be soupset by the errors I make that they'll have to pipe up to correct meand then I'll have them. No, can't see that working either! Damn, it'sback to detective school for me I'm going to get myself killed at thisrate.
plantbirdwoman's review against another edition
3.0
The killer, a man named Maximilian Rose, was caught a year later and sent to prison where he has spent all the intervening years.
After the incident, Alex left the police department on a three-quarters disability pension and returned to his home town of Paradise on the Upper Peninsula, on the shores of Lake Superior. There he took over management of a number of hunters' cabins that had belonged to his now deceased father. He took care of the cabins and lived nearby in the woods in a tiny cabin of his own that he had helped his father build years earlier.
Alex made some friends in the community. One of them was a rich man named Edwin Fulton who had a compulsive gambling habit. Another very good "friend," at least for a while, was Edwin's wife Sylvia. Edwin never knew about their affair and often referred to Alex as his "best friend."
A local lawyer (the Fulton family lawyer) contacted Alex about becoming a private investigator and doing some work for him. After mulling it over, Alex agreed, and so that is how we come to have Alex McKnight, P.I.
One night Edwin calls Alex to come to a motel where he has discovered a dead body. The body turns out to be a local bookmaker to whom Edwin owed money. He had been shot and had his throat cut. There was blood everywhere which gave Alex a flashback to the scene when he and his partner were shot.
A few days later, another bookmaker is killed - another bookmaker to whom Edwin owed money. Do we sense a trend developing here?
Not long after that, Edwin falls off the wagon and goes gambling at local casinos. Alex is sent out to search for him. He doesn't find him but he and his lawyer-employer eventually find his car and a boat nearby on the lake that has blood on it. Meantime, a crazy letter is stuck to the door of Alex's cabin in the woods indicating that Edwin has been killed and that his body is at the bottom of the lake. It is signed "Rose." Hmmm...
Alex is convinced that Maximilian Rose is somehow behind the killings and the harassment that he is receiving; i.e., crazy letters stuck on his cabin door, red roses left at his doorstep and on the boat where Edwin's body was NOT found, and phone calls in the night. But Rose is still in state prison. Maybe Alex is the one who's crazy.
A Cold Day in Paradise was the first in this series by Steve Hamilton. He created a fairly likable character in Alex McKnight, but not necessarily the sharpest knife in the drawer. I figured out who was behind the mystery long before he did, although I admit that I got the motive wrong.
Hamilton's writing is very evocative. I've never been to the UP of Michigan, but after reading this book, I felt that I had been there. I think it must be a wildly beautiful place, but not necessarily a paradise.