Frozen Assets

Frozen Assets
Author: Quentin Bates
Soho Press, 2011
330 pages

As I've mentioned previously, I'm planning a vacation to Iceland this year, and that's got me excited about reading books set there. You'll probably see at least one more Iceland-themed book on this blog before I make that trip, and I'm sure there will be several more as time goes by, because I'm really enjoying Iceland as a setting. Frozen Assets (Frozen Out in the UK) was written by an author from England who lived in Iceland for several years. Allow me to introduce you to the first of what I hope will be many books by Quentin Bates.

Officer Gunnhildur is a female policewoman in a small coastal town. Gunna, as she is called, is a rather large and not particularly attractive widow in her mid-30s who has a young adult son and a teenage daughter. She's also a person with obvious leadership skills and she's not afraid of standing up for herself or stating her opinions. You will like her, I'm pretty sure of this.

When the body of a young man is found floating in the marina of Gunna's little town, most people want to brush it off, thinking he was just a drunk who fell into the water after a night of partying. Gunna has a feeling he was pushed, and the ensuing investigation is going to take us to that dark intersection where corporate greed meets political corruption. The opening stages of the financial crisis are woven into the storyline, and apparently that will be a theme of some of the other books in the series.

Frozen Assets was an enjoyable read, and I'm looking forward to reading more Gunna books and learning what happens with her career and in her personal life. The second book is called Cold Comfort, and a third book is being published in Europe this year so hopefully we'll get it here in the USA soon after.