Customer Reviews

Ice Run: An Alex McKnight Mystery (Alex McKnight Series)

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Following on the heels of last year's Gumshoe Award-winning Blood is the Sky, Steve Hamilton's Ice Run is another emotionally charged, tautly paced mystery featuring reluctant investigator Alex McKnight.

Still recovering from the deadly journey he took in the previous novel, McKnight is trying to fashion some reasonable facsimile of an ordinary life for the first time in years. He's even become involved with a woman and things look promising.

All of that begins to unravel when a romantic dinner is interrupted by a puzzling old man who informs the startled couple that he knows a secret from their past. His bizarre revelation would have been easy enough to ignore -- had he not been found dead later that night.

Hamilton is one of the best in the business at using a keen sense of place as the foundation for his stories. The feeling of isolation, loneliness and bitter cold in the North Woods that fills his books makes them stand out from otherwise similar novels in the crime fiction genre.

Focusing on the domestic side of McKnight's life is a departure for the series, and there are times when it works less well that we've come to expect from Hamilton. The mystery of Ice Run never rises to the level of intrigue that one might hope, and the sense of jeopardy is not as keenly felt.

Those are minor quibbles, however, when a writer has the talent that this one does. With such fine use of setting and memorable characters, Ice Run is a journey you will want to take.

Reviewed by David Montgomery, Chicago Sun-Times

"Ice Run" is the latest Alex McKnight novel by Steve Hamilton, and it takes place during the coldest time of the year in Michigan. Snow is measured by feet, not inches, and if you don't bundle up, you can freeze to death. Alex McKnight, the loner ex-cop who had pretty much given up on love, has fallen for Natalie Reynaud, a cop from the Ontario Provincial Police. One night, when Alex and Natalie visit the fancy Ojibway Hotel in Sault Ste. Marie, an elderly man tips his hat to them. Little do they know that this man holds the key to Natalie's painful past, and both Natalie and Alex are about to be dragged back in time.

At its best, "Ice Run" is an atmospheric and brooding story, with terse dialogue and some delightfully quirky characters. I especially like Jackie, who cares for Alex so much that he reams him for getting sucked into Natalie's problems, and Leon, Alex's old friend, who at a moment's notice, drops everything to do some important digging for his old pal.

The villains, alas, are stock characters, and the mystery itself is not particularly involving. However, Hamilton has a way of capturing the loneliness and desolation of a Michigan winter and tying it in with the characters' bitter and icy emotions. Alex is a charismatic and compassionate hero, and it is hard not to cheer for a man who is willing to risk his life for the woman he loves.

It is January, the first snow storms of the year are falling, and Alex McKnight, former police officer, is in love; and the object of his affection is the mysterious Natalie Reynaud, a Canadian Police officer. Alex and Natalie met after he was present at the death of her partner, and it is soon obvious that Natalie has a lot of emotional baggage and a past that includes sexual abuse from her late stepfather, and a mother who let it happen. When they finally agree to spend their first weekend together an elderly man leaves a hat full of snow outside their bedroom door with a note inside saying "I know who you are." The man is found dead the next day - frozen in the snow. The connection between the old man and Natalie's past is slowly revealed as the story builds up to it's nail-biting climax. Blizzards, white-outs, and freezing cold set the atmospheric thriller as the story hurtles to its conclusion leaving bloody bodies in its wake.

Steve Hamilton has written another great story - even though it is the fifth Alex McKnight mystery - this book can be easily read as a stand alone. Joined once again by his friend Vinnie Le Blanc, the two men join forces when Natalie goes missing. Natalie's character is very slowly revealed as her past is opened up to us and by the time she goes missing amidst all the violent occurrences and revelations she has become so real that you are on the edge of your seat trying to figure out if she will be safe and who the threat is. Steve Hamilton has not let his fans down.

summer's eve; ICE RUN has us ski-boarding after Alex McKnight in this latest of the Steve Hamilton's series. Just the pace of the book is enough to warm you! Let me tell you; if I found a hat (wouldn't matter what kind) on my doorstep with a note that read "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE"; I'd run for cover and stay there.

But not Alex! Off he goes in the worst snow storm of the season in the UP of Michigan; crossing the Canadian border every few hours as easily as I cross my t's. Back and forth in search of the story behind the old man who left the hat and the note outside his hotel room door and then proceeded to wander out into the way-below-zero night only to be found the next day frozen to death.

This all happens while he is rendevousing with a woman with whom he thinks he is in love, but for the life of him cannot figure out. One minute she is saying "Come here, Alex" and the next she is pushing him away and doesn't want to see him anymore. But...and this adds to the allure of the novel...the mystery revolves around HER and is slowly seeping into her everyday life from her very complicated past.

The forward rush of the prose seems to make a path through snow and ice...his bone-crushing opposition made my bones ache...his turmoil with Naltalie adds pathos...and of course his friends, as always, add character and color to an already exciting story line.

Steve Hamilton has never disappointed me. Although ICE RUN is the sixth of the series ; each novel, because of his superb and comprehensive style could easily stand alone.

I hope there is a lot more of Alex left in the talented pen of Steve Hamilton. Kudos to a great teller of tales mysterious and compelling!

It's January in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and as it is wont to do in January a blizzard is taking place. Alex McKnight has made plans to meet the woman in his life, Natalie Reynard, in a historic hotel in Sault Ste. Marie. There they meet a mysterious old man who leaves them a cryptic message in an old fedora filled with snow. The next morning the old man is found frozen to death in a snowbank. When Alex goes to the old man's funeral, his relatives beat the bloody daylights out of him. Natalie's father was murdered in Soo fifteen years earlier and it is not too long before the incidents are tied together.

What sets Steve Hamilton's books apart from other in the genre is the atmospheric setting of the books. I actually felt cold in ninety-degree heat while reading this book. It is wonderfully descriptive and I could really feel the winter of northern Michigan. In this installment, the romance of Natalie and Alex is an integral part to the mystery. As a result, the mystery suffers somewhat as it never rises to the level of suspense I have come to expect from Steve Hamilton. Even though I would not consider this the best book of the series plot-wise, it is still a fine addition to the evolution of the characterization of Alex McKnight.

Another full-strength North Woods Alex McKnight mystery from Edgar Award winning author Steve Hamilton, "Ice Run" is a riveting ride that makes TundraVision's "Sleep? Who Needs Sleep? Page Turners - all night long" List. Sufficient background information is provided that a reader would not necessarily need to start at the beginning with "A Cold Day in Paradise," - but why miss all the fun and excitement?

Alex McKnight is a former Detroit cop, former Major League Baseball player for a day, currently cabin concierge cum reluctant investigator in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP) When we last saw him, he and friend Vinnie LeBlanc, Bay Mills Ojibwa, had just solved the mystery of Vinnie's missing brother - with some help along the way from the beautiful but enigmatic Constable Natalie Reynaud, Ontario Provincial Police. Alex and Natalie meet in the middle, in Sault St. Marie, where they encounter an odd old man in a hat, who mysteriously dies on a walk on a cold winter night. What's going on here? And what has it to do with Natalie?

Making thrilling and chilling ice runs through blinding blizzards between Alex's home in Paradise, UP Michigan, Natalie's home in Blind River, Ontario, Batchwana Bay and knick knack Mackinac Island, the sleep-deprived reader learns that the key to the present often lies in the past. Reviewed by TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer.

Since the publication of A COLD DAY IN PARADISE several years ago, the "Alex McKnight" series has gotten better and better with each preceding novel. The newest book in the series, ICE RUN, is no exception. It clearly displays the extraordinary talent of author, Steve Hamilton, putting him in the same class as James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block, and Dennis Lehane. ICE RUN begins a few months later where BLOOD IN THE SKY left off. Alex McKnight is still seeing Natalie Reynaud, an Ontario police officer who has been on an administrative leave of absence since her partner was killed the previous fall. McKnight is so in love with this woman that he's starting to lose weight and to dye his hair, and he doesn't mind in the least making a two-and-a-half hour trip to her house once or twice a week. This time, however, Natalie wants to visit him, but McKnight is somewhat embarrassed by the small cabin he lives in and talks Natalie into meeting him at the Ojibway Hotel in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. That is the beginning of their troubles. While at the hotel, they meet a strange old man named Simon Grant who befriends them with a bottle of champagne during dinner. Later, the man leaves them a rather bizarre note that says, "I know who you are." He then walks out into a snowstorm at night and freezes to death. When McKnight finds out about Simon Grant's death, he begins to dig into the old man's past to find out who he was and why he left the note. Unbeknownst to McKnight, he opens Pandora's Box with his prying and almost gets killed right off the bat, finding himself caught up in a number of unsolved murders that took place decades before. His love for Natalie will be severely tested as he seeks to find the answers that have eluted the police for so long, refusing to give up and finally accepting the fact that he can't do it alone. With the help of his two friends, Leon Prudell and Vinnie LeBlanc, McKnight pushes ahead against the advice of others and eventually finds himself, along with Natalie, facing death with no way out! ICE RUN is one of those books you can't put down once it's started. The reader quickly finds himself/herself caught up in the mystery of Simon Grant's life and how Natalie and McKnight are involved with the past connecting to the present, revealing surprises that will change the lives of these two people forever. Author Steve Hamilton is the real deal and knows how to bring each character alive so that the reader is with them each step of the way. He knows how to create an atmosphere of cutting-edge suspense that is tied closely to the coldness of the locale (which is almost a character within itself), each feeding upon the other and building to an avalanche of shocking revelations that not only stuns the lead characters, but the reader as well. Mysteries and suspense thrillers don't get much better this. Needless to say, ICE RUN succeeds on every level and should be a contender for the bestseller lists. If you want a new series to get addicted to, then pick-up the "Alex McKnight" books. I guarantee you'll have all six of them read within the first week!!!

Sometimes it is the voice of the character that is the major strength of a work. It may exceed the plot, pacing or depiction of locale as the most important characteristic of the writer. Steve Hamilton's Alex McKnight is one of the most vivid and memorable in all of the mystery genre. Steve exploded on the scene in 1998 with the Edgar award winning A COLD DAY IN PARADISE. Since that time he has written a total of four other books with Alex McKnight as the main protagonist- all superior reads and among the best the genre has to offer.
ICE RUN starts out easy enough. A snow storm is coming to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Alex wants to meet his girlfriend, Natalie Raynaud, a Canadian Police Officer, in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan- about a two and a half hour drive from his home in Paradise. When he shows up a day late, an elderly gentleman is in the lobby with a suit and a fancy hat smiling and asking whether Alex likes his hat. Later, while Alex and Natalie are having dinner, the man buys them champagne and disappears out the door. The next day he turns up dead. Who was and how did he know them? These answers are considerably more complex.
As good as Steve Hamilton books are, not all are perfect. ICE RUN rings true with the voice of Alex McKnight but the book has its flaws. Characters, especially the minor ones, are not well sketched and tend to come off a bit wooden. The solution is so convoluted that it can make the reader's head spin and the ending contains the detested scene of the villian holding the hero at gunpoint as we clear up some final points just prior to the predictable conclusion. Nonetheless, the plot is compelling, the locale beautifully rendered and the frigid milieu should prove refreshing reading in the hot summer months. Steve Hamilton is an excellent writer but as much as I would miss Alex McKnight, it might be time for Steve to leave him alone in Paradise for awhile and create a standalone. That will be the best way to allow Steve the wider audience he so much deserves. Well recommended.

Alex McKnight is no stranger to having the stuffing beaten out of him. Recovering from wounds obtained while working his last case, he finds that his life away from the world from private investigation will still find a way to drop him in the middle of someone else's trouble. The sea change of looking after his family's holiday cabins in the town of Paradise, Michigan isn't working in the peace like he had hoped it would. Fed up with a relationship that is going nowhere Alex takes the plunge and organises a hotel rendezvous with Natalie Reynaud, a beautiful Canadian woman who has her own reasons to want to live in the shadows for awhile, away from the stresses of being a police officer.

It doesn't turn out to be the romantic weekend he had hoped for. Fighting the worst of what winter can throw at him, Alex makes it to the hotel and encounters an elderly gentleman who seems to have been abandoned at the hotel, yet is quite at home. Returning to their room after dinner the man's distinctive hat is found there, upturned with a bowl of snow inside surrounding a note stating "I know who you are". Too late to ask the old man what he means - he has taken a walk in fierce weather and is found frozen to death in a snowbank. Where does it go from here? Straight into the murky past of a family feud that dates back generations and murders unsolved.

Entry number six in the Alex McKnight series is a winner. Author Steve Hamilton serves it straight up - solid characterization, a quirky plot and a relentless pace all deliver a great read in this successful series. Hamilton strips his narrative of all unnecessary detail and what is left in is both pertinent and entertaining. The character of Alex McKnight is hard not to like and there is sufficient input from the intriguing secondary characters to make you want to search out the other novels. "Ice Run" functions very well also as a standalone read. Push the cat off the chair and read this one by the fire.

Ice Run is the sixth book in the Alex McKnight series and begins with Alex meeting with his recent new girlfriend, Natalie. They meet in a hotel where a creepy old man follows them around before finally leaving his hat at their door with a note, claiming that he knew who they were. Shortly after, they find out he froze to death on the sidewalk outside and soon the horrors of the past begin to reveal themselves as the mystery behind this old man begins to unfold.

I didnt think that Hamilton could drop the ball again like he did with The Hunting Wind and I didnt realize how wrong I was until after finishing this book. In fact, this was arguably the weakest in the series. The mystery was never very compelling or interesting to begin with. It eventually comes down to a very slow grind before we find out what happened, which was hundreds of pages before the ending showed up. The ending just reinforced what was already said near the start of the book, which made the entire final two thirds of the book pointless filler. Also Natalie was not a very likeable character at all.

As mediocre as this book was, its not getting a lower review simply because Steve Hamilton wrote it. I know that he can do a hell of a lot better than this, but it was still the biggest disappointment in the series yet. Th earlier books in the series were fantastic whereas this book was not.