Frozen by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

Category: 50 Books

18. Frozen by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

I stumbled across this author by accident. Actually, I started out reading Strange Blood and realized that I was reading the second book first. So the next day I went back to the ‘brary and found that we actually had the first book as well! This is (I’m pretty sure) the first book in the Dr. Megan Rhys series, and if it’s not the first then it at least comes before Strange Blood.

This is a standard crime novel/mystery/whodunit. Dr. Rhys is a behavioral psychologist and teacher and sometimes helps the police by profiling. The main difference between this crime novel and the other crime schlock I read is that it takes place in England. This meant I had to learn some new vocabulary. Even though the police are mostly the same as here, and everything’s really the same, it’s just called different things sometimes. For the first couple of chapters I had to look up a few words. But it wasn’t like I didn’t know what she was talkng about. I used my context clues. Like when she used the word punter. I knew she wasn’t talking about an american football player. I could tell it was their word for john (like a dude with a hooker). Also, I could tell who the SOCOs were (the equivalent to our CSI or whatever you want to call the forensic team), I just didn’t know what the letters SOCO stood for. Cos I kept thinking of Southern Comfort. So, across the pond SOCO stands for Scene Of Crime Officer. Although they aren’t actually officers like a police officer. They are civilians who work the crime scene like over here.

S’anyway, aside from a few new vocab words the book read just like a regular whodunit. It was good. I didn’t know whodunit until the end. I kept guessing, and I did guess that guy, but then there were other guys, and I guessed them too and had forgotten all about him.

Basically the story is there’s prostitutes being killed. I know right? England with it’s Jack the Ripper thing. And Dr. Rhys helps out. And of course, the killer comes after her. Because that’s what killers do in books they go after the smart girl. It was the same in Cornwell’s Scarpetta series.

I’d recommend this to anyone who likes mysteries especially if you’re in a mood to change venue (read: sick of New York, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco)

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