*** REVIEW *** THE GIRL IN THE ICE by Robert Bryndza

Her eyes are wide open. Her lips parted as if to speak. Her dead body frozen in the ice…She is not the only one.

When a young boy discovers the body of a woman beneath a thick sheet of ice in a South London park, Detective Erika Foster is called in to lead the murder investigation.

The victim, a beautiful young socialite, appeared to have the perfect life. Yet when Erika begins to dig deeper, she starts to connect the dots between the murder and the killings of three prostitutes, all found strangled, hands bound and dumped in water around London.

What dark secrets is the girl in the ice hiding?

As Erika inches closer to uncovering the truth, the killer is closing in on Erika.

The last investigation Erika led went badly wrong… resulting in the death of her husband. With her career hanging by a thread, Erika must now battle her own personal demons as well as a killer more deadly than any she’s faced before. But will she get to him before he strikes again? 

I am in a Goodreads group that is challenging us to work on our TBR list.  Using a randomizer, whatever number is selected that is the book you must read.  My selection for this month is #483on my list -- The Girl in the Ice.  I love a good British crime thriller and this one is the perfect way to start me on this challenge.

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Andrea Douglas-Brown, the beloved daughter of a high-ranking politician, is walking on the wild side, in a dangerous part of London.  She leaves a well-known hangout for criminal types and runs into someone she doesn’t expect.  The meeting didn’t go well for Andrea.  She is found dead and frozen in the water of a local museum.  Who is the murderer?  The low life from the bar, her fiancé, a random hookup?  The clues point to several people.  The challenge for the police is their need to step carefully without offending the victim’s father, Sir Douglas-Brown. 

On her first day at the Lewisham Row Police Station, Erika Foster is assigned the lead investigator on the high-profile case of Andrea Douglas-Brown.  She takes over ruffling feathers within the police department and without.  In addition, Erika is returning from administrative leave, after leading a team where five officers were killed including her husband.  There are many at her new station who don’t trust her instincts anymore.

I love this story, primarily because of DCI Erika Foster.  She is severely beaten down and lost.  She has nothing left from her previous life.  Her husband, her home, her friends are all gone.  Regardless, she still has her integrity and ethics that she will not compromise.  Her investigation gains her admiration from her team, and anger from senior management who want her to treat the privileged with kid gloves.  As a reader, I go up and down with Erika as she fights her internal and external battles.

Robert Bryndza does an excellent job showing Erika’s pain and the road she travels to try and build back some semblance of a new normal.  There are times when I question if she will make it through the next day.  The suspense builds as she investigates the crime.  There are unexpected twists that I followed down the wrong path.  The story also tackles some political issues that face Great Britain including, how the class system still favors the wealthy when solving crimes, and immigration.  The Girl in the Ice is my kind of thriller/police procedural.  I will add more books in this series to my TBR list immediately. 

4.5 STAMPS