Freezing Book

In her first thriller, The Last Girl, London barrister Penelope Evans created a memorable monster--a landlord who would do anything to keep his young, female tenants from leaving--and earned herself strong praise from the likes of Ruth Rendell and Penelope Fitzgerald. In her second book, Evans gives us an even more original central character: Stewart Park, an odd, ugly, very innocent, and ultimately most sympathetic young man who works as a morgue photographer. He becomes obsessed with the frozen body of a fragile blonde drowning victim: "They must have rolled her onto the bank. River police. Everyday sort of work for them, people in the water. But not usually so recent. They would have taken one look at her and tried everything-- mouth to mouth, heart massage, volts of electric--everything short of shaking the life back into her.... She was beautiful. Is it all right to say that? That is what she was--beautiful. Her mouth was wide, and despite all those kisses on the river bank, unimpressed. You could trace every vein in her eyelids. There was even a faint hint of color in her cheeks. The river had done no more than wet her and take her breath away. So why not put her back in the river, and maybe the breath will return to her?" His fascination with the dead girl causes Park to put himself at considerable risk by trying to find out who she was and how she died. And Evans has such a sure grasp on the sadly mundane details of this outwardly bizarre life that we're with him every step of the way. --Dick AdlerRead More