This is the bloodiest book I've ever read and even ends with blood. A boy Luke and his girlfriend Ellie are beset by a serial killer that beheads his animal victims and sometimes his human ones. The police, one of whom had a son killed years before by this same man, seems stymied by the killer. There is a lot of cyberware happening and even facebook messages. The cop, Jason, quits and gets drunk after Ellie is kidnapped from a house by the killer who is her father. He sends a video of her to the TV taunting the cop. At the end Ellie kills her father, and then finds that her older brother has been "learning" from him. It is a scary book.

It took me awhile to get through this. The story was interesting, but it couldn't hold my attention. There were a lot of details that weren't necessary and, if anything, detracted from the overall appeal of the book. It's definitely not something that you "can't put down" by any stretch of the imagination, although it IS easy to pick up again once you do. You can't really get lost, which is a plus.

One thing that bothered me a bit was that it was really... unrealistic, for lack of a better term. No relationship between high school aged kids is THAT intense THAT quickly. At that point, they're still distracted by shiny objects. Also, the hacker kid? He would have been caught & either working for the government or in juvi. Not to mention that the kids didn't tell their parents anything. Now, yes, the killer said not to and teenagers are secretive, but these kids are scared out of their minds! There's no way you can tell me that their parents aren't going to be able to figure that out & make the kids tell them what is going on. I know it's supposed to be a story, and therefore has the potential to be unrealistic, but when everything else about it seems to be so modern and true to life, it's hard to mesh it with something that seems like it came out of a Disney movie or a Scorsese film.

All that aside, I liked the killer. I don't mean that in the sense that he was a great guy & I want to go get a cocktail with him or something; he was a good villain though and made you want to catch & kill the SOB, just like the detective and the FBI agent. The man was F-ed in the head, but it was perfect for how he was worked into the story.

Finally, although the book itself didn't hold my interest much, I enjoyed the ending. It was a good way to wrap it up, albeit a little predictable after how the rest of the story went down and again, unrealistic enough to be a nuisance, but not so much that I couldn't live with it. My biggest issue with it, however, was that it was quite vague. We don't find out much about what happened with the detective, the FBI agent, Luke's family, etc. We just get a small glimpse of what's going on. There are loose ends that could have been tied up, or at least left at a point where the reader can do more than speculate. ( )

I just finished reading FROZEN PAST and wondered why I was sitting here filled with anxiety. Then it dawned on me. I HAD JUST FINISHED READING FROZEN PAST!

Richard Hale pulls you in from the very beginning, catching your attention as you walk along with 12-yr-old Stewy on a chilly Halloween night, alone after all the little kids had filled their bags with candy and had gone home. He was satisfied with his haul and the childish pranks he pulled. Until he heard a small voice in the bushes..."help me"...and Stewie was gone...never to be seen again. Where did he go? Who killed him?

FROZEN PAST is a mystery/thriller that will surprise and shock you throughout. Its many twists and turns will leave you breathless and on the edge of your seat as you attempt to figure out the killer's next move. You won't. At first I thought the storyline was focusing on just the young people involved and their lives, but real life isn't like that. Real life involves teenagers AND adults and how they bump into each other's lives all the time. Awkwardly and seamlessly at the same time. I love how Detective Jaxon Jennings and his crew were incorporated into the story to make things gritty and real.

Read this book in less than 24 hours...gripping and thrilling. You will not be disappointed! ( )