BOOK REVIEW: The Girl in the Ice (Detective Erika Foster, #1) by Robert Bryndza

The Girl in the Ice is the first book I have read by Robert Bryndza. It is quite a good police procedural murder mystery with an interesting but flawed main character, DCI Erika Foster.

I am looking forward to reading more mysteries featuring DCI Foster. I’m sorta surprised that the author has made his main character have such a traumatic backstory (her policeman husband was shot and killed on a drugs raid that she was the commanding officer for). I presume this is the explanation for why Detective Foster  acts so inappropriately during the course of the investigation of the murder of the slutty daughter of a rich, politically connected businessman.

One key feature of the book which guarantees that I will read the next entries in the DCI Foster series is the diversity of the supporting characters: a lesbian DI, a handsome Black male DI and an openly gay pathologist. A relatively strong feature of the book is the level of suspense that is maintained throughout the book.  All of these supporting characters have interesting sub-plots in the book which greatly enhanced the book in my opinion.

However I did feel like a significant weakness of the book was the somewhat simplistic nature of the writing. One can't say that The Girl in the Ice is a complicated or thought-provoking read but then again very few murder-mysteries are. This is a notable exception to the complicated writing in Mark Billingham's Sleepyhead. 

That being said, since this is just the first book in the Detective Erika Foster series I expect the later entries will get better so I’m willing to give Bryndza an opportunity to improve, which I think he will.

RATING: 3.5 stars.

Title: The Girl in the Ice.
Author: Robert Bryndza.
Paperback: 396 pages.
Publisher: Bookouture.
Date Published: February 12, 2016.
Date Read: March 6, 2018.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.