In Deep Freeze, readers know who the killer is before knowing there's been a crime. The stories always unfold in a smooth, water-streaming-downhill flow. Someone in rural Minnesota commits a murder the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (Is there really such a thing?) dispatches veteran investigator Virgil Flowers, and through his knowledge accumulated through experience, he solves the crime. I finished Deep Freeze in three evenings, after work. The book I read before this took me an entire weekend and several days out of the ensuing week. His novels are compulsively readable, and un-put-down-able. I always look forward to these and ususally read them in a day or two. A lot of laugh out loud moments and some intense action, though these are essentially character driven books. These books remind me of the British cozy mysteries where every town has a dark underbelly and a host of rivalries and secrets. This time he's chasing the murderer of a woman who was not very well liked, meanwhile, with Sandford's patented tongue-in-cheek style, a private investigator is tying to track down a woman who is adulterating Barbie and Ken dolls in a creepy way. In this entry Flowers revisits the town where he uncovered a conspiracy of the local elites to skim cash from the school system. On thing that Sandford manages is to create a host of characters that I never find confusing, they are well drawn by swift and deft descriptions that make them easily followable.

The small town politics and the dark but funny ne'er do wells that populate this series are always well done. Flowers is a likable character and the cast of family and friends are funny and believable. There's a bit of formula to these stories, but that's part of the reason I read series mystery fiction. I love the quirkiness of the small town Minnesota settings and the weird and crazy characters. Another great entry in the Virgil Flowers series.

Deep freeze by john sandford