COLD MOURNING - Brenda Chapman


 A week before Christmas, a wealthy business man, Tom Underwood, disappears into thin air.  The Ontario police assign new recruit, Kala Stonechild - a member of the First Nations reserve, to the case. Her boss is Detective Jacques Rouleau and he has his hands full trying to control her.  Together they discover that there is a large pool of individuals who would want to see Underwood dead.

This is one of the oldest books in my ARC-TBR queue and based on the description it sounded like something I really might enjoy. Given my rising interest in mysteries and my continuing interest in indigenous cultures I really felt that this was a book/series I might gravitate toward. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.

The book opens with a brutal rape and murder scene, so well written that I wasn't sure I wanted to read any further. The rest of the book, however, is quite tame by comparison. But the connection between the characters in the opening scene and the rest of the book is also a mystery. We do not see the survivors of the rape/murder until the last 15% of the book and the entire time I kept asking myself where this was going and what was the connection.  I'm still not sure because the story lost my interest.

The characters seemed intriguing and the writing was powerful.  I was seriously invested and therefore horrified and shocked at the opening and that takes some really powerful writing to get to me that way, but I did not feel that invested later on. Perhaps I was brought into the story too powerfully ... because it made such an impression on me but then we leave those characters for 3/4 of the story,, it was just a  let down.

Looking for a good book? Cold Mourning by Brenda Chapman is a mystery with good writing, but the story doesn't connect.

I receive a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars

* * * * * *

Cold Mourning

author: Brenda Chapman

series: Stonechild and Rouleau Mystery #1

publisher: Dundurn

ISBN: 9781459708013

paperback, 392 pages

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