Customer Reviews

Snow Blind (Monkeewrench Mysteries)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Many will remember voice performer Foster for his deft reading of "Fantastic, The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger." That story was a rich field for an actor, and Foster mined it well, as he easily segued from one characterization to another. The same may be said of "Snow Blind," as Foster becomes Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth as they face not just chilling murders but frozen ones.

It's Minneapolis; it's the dead (literally) of winter, and the idea of a snowman building contest sounded good. Minnesotans are hearty folk and many joined in the fun, filling a park with their icy creations. The fun came to a quick halt when the bodies of very dead policemen are found inside two of the snowmen - a shock for all, the townspeople, the entire police department and Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth.

Within 24 hours there's a copycat discovery in Dundas County. Is it a copycat or a serial killer? There's a new sheriff in Dundas, Iris Rikker, and Magozzi with Rolseth quickly head her way despite a raging blizzard.

These two detectives are pros; they know they need all the help they can get so they call on Grace McBride at Monkeewrench to start searching the web for any hints they can find.

P.J. Tracy (a mother/daughter team) has done it again - crafted an exciting thriller filled with likeable (and sometimes very funny) characters. Sit back, listen, and enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

Snow Blind revolves around Minnesotan detectives Rolseth and Magozzi who have been the support cast to the computer geniuses who make up the Monkeewrench team in the three former novels of this great series. The Monkeewrench team are still in this one, just on very few pages. Obviously after an extremely high quality and popular series so far, the ultimate test for this mother and daughter team is to write a novel with completely separate characters. Snow Blind is obviously them trying their hand to see if they can one day produce that independent novel, while still at the moment keeping the attachment to the popular characters of this great series. Good on them for them that, many authors are too scared of the backlash from their fans to take this step. Hopefully the success of this book will encourage them to take the next step and go all the way (while of course still continuing to write more in the great Monkeerench series as well).

In Snow Blind Minneapolis homicide detectives are disgusted to find inside the thawing snow men at a charity event the corpses of two of their own. As they pursue the case more corpse filled snow men appear outside of Minneapolis. Their pursuit takes them to rural Dundas County where small town politics still runs the police. They will have to deal with a police force that resents its newly elected female sheriff, Iris Rikker whose first day on the job was the discovery of a corpse snowman. Throw in a mysterious community called Bitterroot that has no male residents and Detective Magozzi and Rolseth and the other officers will have their most interesting and confusing case ever.

To be honest Snow Blind isn't the high quality masterpiece that the initial Monkeerench (also published as Want to Play? in some markets) and next in the series Live Bait were. I did like the fact that it was more plausible and relied less on coincidence to pull of the story line than third in the series Hit and Run did and is back to a traditional police homicide thriller rather than American terrorists as was the case with that novel. Although not as good as the predecessors and certainly more predictable than the other novels it is still a great read for anyone and not just fans of P.J. Tracy. It also does not give away the plots of former novels if this is your initial entry into their work.

Homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gina Rolseth take the lead in this wintertime murder investigation set in Minneapoilis. A major snowfall has come to provide the material for a snowman-building content. But a couple snowmen are different from the others in that they contain the bodies of murdered men, and policemen at that. Another snow-man, found on an iced over lake outside Minneapolis, turns out to be a missing parole officer. It is discovered that the link between the three men is a paroled convict who has been asking after his ex-wife, whom he had nearly beat to death.

The mother and daughter team who make up PJ Tracy certainly know how to write a page-turning book. Of their alternating protagonists, I actually prefer the detectives, but that's a personal choice. I appreciate the humor in their writing, offsetting the very serious subject of abuse with the completely inexperienced new Sheriff in Dundas County. The writing is tight, dialogue crisp, and characters engaging. The stories are fast-paced and make you want the next book as soon as you've finished the one. If you looking for an enjoyable Sunday afternoon read, this is it.

So this latest from the writing team known as P.J Tracy has all the things that have been flagged as problematic in the previous books:

--the wildly eccentric, nigh unbelievable Monkeewrench-ites with their in the nick of time computer analyses

--the improbably complicated bad guys (this one involves the bodies of slaying victims being found encased in snowmen) involved in a super complex plot

--The super complex plot involves something that both Monkeewrench and some quaint rural Minnesota town, as well as Minneapolis PD are all somehow a part of.

Nevertheless, like the first three books, I couldn't put this one down. I read it in a day, scoffing at the improbabilities yet hooked the whole time. And the cops and cop interaction, at least, feel realistic. Also, I KNOW the quirky Monkeewrench crew are unrealistic characters but nevertheless I like them all. I was only sorry that there wasn't a bit more of them in this book and a bit less of the clueless new sheriff of the rural town. There are other ruralites in other Tracy books that I hope to see more of; this one I could live happily without seeing again.

If you liked the previous Tracy books and could get past their unbelievable coincidences, then you will probably like this one too--if the previous ones aren't your cup of tea, then this one most likely won't work for you either.

The latest in the Monkeewrench series leads me to the conclusion that the Monkeewrench gang are not the main characters of this series. It finally dawned on me that Magozzi and Rolseth are the main characters, and the Monkeewrench gang are wonderful side characters (and deus ex machina).

This said, this book is just as riveting as the first one (Monkeewrench) and better than the 2nd and 3rd ones. The book can be read equally as a stand-alone or part of a series. If you read this one first, however, make sure you go back and read Monkeewrench before the others.

The plot revolves around multiple homicides in different locations that appear linked. Investigation by the different jurisdictions of police (Magozzi & Rolseth representing the Minneapolis contingent; a brand-new female sheriff representing an isolated MN county where much of the action occurs) separate the investigations, then merge them back together in a truly stunning conclusion.

The writing in the book is crisp and humorous. The mother/daughter authors do not have any problem projecting the story in one voice. They use the tension between the new woman sherriff and the expereienced Minneapolis detectives to insert several pithy observations that will cause you to chuckle ["That, she decided, was the secret to communicating with men. Whenever possible, use signals instead of words. Words just confused them."] On the whole, do not start this book at night -after the slightly slow start, it rockets through right to the end at breakneck pace.

Since Monkeewrench is one of my all-time favorite books, my standards are high. Snow Blind just didn't compare. My husband and I have read all of P.J. Tracy's books and eagerly await each new work; but, if they'd write a book equally as good as their Monkeewrench and Dead Run, we'd wait longer for each new book!

I love the Monkeewrench characters. The humor makes me laugh out loud. I don't think they played a great part in this book. And for me, the ending was a little "bland". But I love the series and will continue reading them!

The mother-daughter writing team of P. J. Tracy puts out some great crime fiction with a little hi-tech thrown in for good measure. Their latest offering, Snow Blind, is a fun read, but I don't think it quite measures up to their previous efforts.

Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth are drawn into a very strange crime scene at the scene of a public snowman building contest at a park (this *is* Minnesota). Turns out that two of the snowmen are actually dead men covered with snow. Even worse, they're members of the police force. Obviously the death of cops get everyone fired up, and the detectives are primary on trying to crack the case. It gets even stranger when another dead snowman is found upstate, in a rural district run by a woman sheriff who just got voted into the position and knows she's in over her head. Magozzi and Rolseth need to figure out whether the crimes are related (or not), as well as how all the victims are connected (or not). The common thread overall keeps coming back to a "company community" called Bitterroot. It's a highly guarded fortress that's actually a shelter for battered and abused women, and there are *no* men allowed. Could it be that justice is being carried out vigilante-style?

On the plus side, the dialogue between the detectives continues to be witty and humorous. It's not hard to see two long-time partners having this type of rapport with each other. On the negative side, the Monkeewrench crew (the hi-tech criminologists) are nearly nowhere to be found here. Being that I really like that group and the technology angle, I was somewhat disappointed. I also thought the resolutions of the plot threads was somewhat muddled. I was having a hard time following who was who, and how those relations caused things to play out...

If given a do-over, I'd still read the book as it was enjoyable. But I wouldn't recommend this as the starting point for anyone checking out P. J. Tracy for the first time...

PJ Tracy is the pseudonym of a mother-daughter writing duo P.J. and Traci Lambrecht, (I am not too sure how this works?). Their first three novels, Monkeewrench, Live Bait and Dead Run, have become national and international bestsellers. They have also become best selling author's in the UK.

The book certainly has an unusual twist to it and I found it entertaining reading. It is the kind of book that does not make you have to think too much if you know what I mean and sometimes that is a good thing. You can just sit and relax and enjoy the book without any distractions.

Begins in Minneapolis during a hard spell of winter, residents often joke that it is the season that lasts for eleven months of the year. Someone has the bright idea of brightening up the dreary season by sponsoring a snowman building contest and in a matter of hours the local park is ringing with the laughter of children building their creations.

It is not until a while later that a macabre secret is unveiled. The bodies of two Minneapolis police officers are found within two of the snowmen. This puts the Minneapolis police department on red alert. The following day yet another officer is found dead. This encourages the Monkeewrench team of crack computer buffs to become involved in trawling the net for clues and eventually a terrifying link emerges connecting the dead cops . . .

I have used the words "brave and radical"in my title for this review and there is a reason for this.Most crime novels provide their readers with a sense of closure by setting up a situation in which a crime is perpetrated ,investigated and solved .The culprits are identified and brough to justive and order is restored to the moral universe of the book .Crime novels are thus deeply Conservative ,at least for the most part.
Here there is no such sense of closure or the restoration of order.We are never wholly sure who the killers are -we are left to make our own minds up -and justice is not meted out to the potential perpetrators.This is a book of moral ambiguity and even handedness

It seens the return of the Minneapolis cops familiar to readers of earlier P J Tracy books ,Rizzoli and Rolseth .The crew of the computer company Monkeewrench ,while present as before,take a back seat this time out and the result is a book more like a police proceduraal than are earlier works .Events are set in motion with the discovery ,in a frozen Minneaplois park of two bodies ,hidden in snowmen .They are the remains of two local cops ,Tommy Deaton and Toby Myerson
Soon thereafter another body hidden inside a snowman turns up ,this time in upstate Minnesota .There is no mystery here about the killer ,the body being that of a parole officer ,and he has ben killed by a parolee ,a vicious killer named Weinbeck who is seeking the whereabouts of his wife ,who he abused repeatedly when free .
This case is dumped in the lap of a newly elected female sheriiff of the county ,Rikker ,a woman who feels out of her depth -mainly becuase she is .
Events turn on Bitterroot , a community of women ,in the wilds of the state ,that was established a haven for abused women ,a community whose founders ,we learn ,had killed in the past .It turns out that one of the murdered cops was also a spousal abuser and his ex-cop father in law is a suspect in the case .
The crimes may be the work of the father in law;they may have been carried out by women from Bitterrrot ,some of whom beleieve the world should be ourged of abusers by any means possible
The lack of clear resolution will frustrate and annoy many readers but for me it adds to the appeal of a well written and even handed book that raises real issues in an adult ,responsible and mature way .It may lavk the sheer tension of earlier wirks by this writing team but it is a more mature and ambiguous work ,with a very good line in desriptive writing of climate and terrain