Title: Dead of Winter
Author: Darcy Coates
Series: n/a
unsympathetic lead
Thanks to Darcy Coates, Poisoned Pen Press, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was an okay thriller, though the premise has been done. My chief complaints are the abrupt beginning and ending as well as the length/lack of energy, all of which relates to the main problem, a lack of sympathy for the lead character.
So we start out with a cold open, Christa lost in the snowy wilderness, looking for Kiernan, everything already messed up. This goes on for longer than one would expect before of course flashing back to the start of the trip and explaining how the cold open happened, leading back to present. This isn’t a new way to begin a story, but for some reason this cold open felt extra abrupt to me. I was expected to feel concern and sympathy and fear for characters I knew nothing about. When Kiernan vanished and Christa was desperate and heartsick, I felt nothing, because their relationship meant nothing to me. I hadn’t seen it develop, knew nothing about either of them. So you and your boyfriend decided to go walking around unfamiliar territory in bad conditions you weren’t prepared for. I’m really not surprised that brilliant decision ended with one frostbitten and one missing presumed dead.
Yeah, we definitely started out with a deficit in sympathy for Christa that unfortunately carried through the novel, which went on, and on, and on. I tuned out at spots in the middle and was still able to follow along. Ironically, I would’ve actually recommended showing more of Christa and Kiernan’s relationship in the beginning to endear them to the reader; but the middle needed to be—haha—butchered. (Inside joke.) Maybe a more sympathetic, charismatic, proactive lead would have energized the novel so the length wouldn’t have been felt, but as it is it just felt like things kept happening to them but nothing except panicking was being done. And I mean, you can only describe the fear and trauma a character’s going through so many times before the reader goes numb to it.
As for the ending—I can’t decide if the multiple red herrings were ridiculous or clever. Leaning toward ridiculous, because when the head rolled down the stairs, I was at the point where I just rolled my eyes, because of course. The villain’s let-me-stop-and-explain-everything-to-you-so-you-can-bask-in-my-brilliance monologue was a portrait of the narcissism and arrogance of a psychopath. Cliche, but probably realistic; I can’t imagine the villain just killing Christa without bragging.
What was abrupt about the ending was literally the end. Rescue was imminent, cut to black. No aftermath, no epilogue, no life-after-trauma. I’m not a fan of those kinds of endings. I need more closure than that.
Overall not the best Darcy Coates book. She can do better. I prefer her ghost stories to her thrillers. The Gravekeeper series remains my favorite.
