4 stars
First Sentence: On the afternoon of September 11th, 2001, my mama called me up at my dorm and begged me not to join the Marines.
Thoughts: I was so excited to find a new Rivers of London book at the library there was an audible “yoink” as I pulled it off the shelf. Sure it’s only a novella about one of the side characters but I’ll take whatever I can get from this series. Even if it is about my least favorite side character, Kimberley Reynolds the overly religious FBI agent. Although she isn’t as annoyingly Christian as she was in Whispers Underground.
Despite the first sentence, the adventure begins well after 9/11. That was just the beginning of Kimberley’s journey to the FBI.* Our story begins twenty years later when Patrick Henderson, a retired FBI agent, calls the Bureau to report an “x-ray sierra indigo” incident in the town of Eloise in northern Wisconsin. No one knew what the heck an “x-ray sierra indigo” incident was, so the message was passed around until it reached the “basement” aka department relating to supernatural affairs aka where Kimberley works.
Off she hops to Wisconsin in winter. Her first stop is the police station. Her second stop is the tent where the police relocated after their building was destroyed in a tornado. Tornadoes do not happen in winter, but this cyclone didn’t get the message. From there Kim goes to Henderson’s house. He’s disappeared but there are some intriguing tracks leading away from the house. There are also some notes and voicemails pointing her towards the local library.
To the book depository! There Kim throws her weight around until she gets access to the old journal Henderson had been studying before he disappeared. The journal was from a member of a lost expedition the Virgins (the Virginia Gentlemen’s Society or southern sorcerers) had sent to Wisconsin territory in the 1840s. No one from that expedition survived, so artifacts are extremely rare. The journal indicated that the expedition was about to tangle with some sort of native supernatural entity but ends the day before that battle was to take place. Hmmmm.
With the help of a friendly Osage meteorologist and a seems friendly enough ethnographer, Kim follows the tracks to a hotel built on the campsite of the Virgin’s expedition. And that’s where the ice monsters found them. Kim finds herself on the run while simultaneously searching for whatever spirit has reawakened before the next ice tornado hits.
Side note that has no bearing on anything: I like the German translation of the title.
*And in case you’re wondering (you probably aren’t), her descriptions of what her fellow college students did that day is spot-on. I, too, was a college student in 01 so I speak from experience.
The Eclectic Reviewer 