A Season of Fear by Brian Freeman

This is the second Cab Bolton thriller, the first is The Bone House. The assassination of a politician leaves a trail of unanswered questions ten years after the tragedy.

Now the tables are turned and his wife is in the midst of a political campaign. There are threats against her life and those threats result in the past being dug up again.

Who was the shooter? Was the wrong person blamed? It seems as if everyone is hiding some kind of secret. The real culprit is an unexpected surprise, but the viciousness that person shows is even more of a surprise.

The book can be read as a standalone, however the characters are solid enough to make the reader want to discover more in the series.

The whole Diane and Cab storyline seemed a wee bit forced and predictable. I am surprised his mother took it on board with such ease. The relationship between Cab and Tarla is a major focus of the story, which is pleasant but not overpowering. The mother with a large ego to go hand in hand with her fame and talent. Not an easy personality to deal with as a child or as an adult for that matter. Perhaps her flamboyant manner is why he turns to Diane in the first place.

Peach is one of the more colourful characters, and her storyline takes the reader straight towards the solution. At first her problems and involvement seem almost trivial to both Cab and the reader, however this changes quickly as the pace of the book picks up.

Freeman has managed to wrap a mystery within a crime and send the readers off in multiple wrong directions before bringing the story to a surprising conclusion.
I received a copy of this book courtesy of Edelweiss.

The Cold Nowhere by Brian Freeman

Nothing binds people quite like a large portion of guilt and Stride certainly has that when it comes to Cat. Cat on the other hand is a mixture of personalities, now and again a child, often survival expert and sometimes a Lolita.

Cat turns out to be the daughter of someone Stride used to know, despite a load of warning signals he decides to help her out. Yes she has a wee knife fetish and walks around in her sleep, but hey there could be worse scenarios, right?

The focus of this story is on the emotional burden Stride carries around with him. He messed up his relationship with Serena, he has difficulty connecting with Maggie and he is still bound to a woman from his past. He yearns for the temptation of the unfulfilled love and burns with an inner anger because he blames himself for her death.

It seems as if the Lolita has gotten herself tied up in corruption and the deviant behaviour of others. It is fair to say that Maggie not only doesn’t trust Cat, she also doesn’t like her much. I think she resents the girl being allowed into the inner sanctum of Stride, a place Maggie no longer has access to.

On a side note, who thinks the cold wind often chews on their face like maggots? I had to read that sentence twice and it still made me shiver with disgust. Thank you Mr Freeman for forever linking together in my mind, cold winds and maggots that like to chew on faces.

It is a crime story with emphasis on the past, heavy on the emotions and lighter on the action.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley.