Katie′s #CBR5 Review #29: Frozen In Time by Mitchell Zuckoff

Title: Frozen In Time
Author: Mitchell Zuckoff
Source: from publisher for review
Rating: 
Fun Fact: The Greenland coastline is longer than the distance around the equator.
Review Summary: Another awesome example of narrative non-fiction from Zuckoff, packed with adventure, drama, and a personal touch that makes the reader feel like the know the people involved.

During WWII, planes routinely used Greenland as a staging point to get from the US to Europe. From this story, it seems as though planes almost as routinely ended up crashing due to the wind and poor visibility! In Frozen In Time,  a B-17 participating in a search and rescue mission crash lands with all men on board miraculously surviving the crash. A Gruman Duck amphibious plane which is part of a daring rescue mission crashes as well and since none of the men on board survived, the plane is never retrieved. Frozen In Time tells both the story of the many daring rescue attempts necessary to retrieve the men aboard the B-17 and the modern day story of the hunt for the lost Duck.

Read more at Doing Dewey…

HelloKatieO’s #CBR5 Review #5: The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg

I’m embarking on what I like to call a “crime spree” and I’m taking another tour through the crime/mystery realm of books. In the next few posts, in addition to this Swedish crime novel, I’ll be reading a fictionalized account of a true crime story, a journalist’s account of crime in Baltimoreover the course of a year, and an Elmore Leonardnovel (he’s his own genre by now,  I think, based on how prolific he is).

So, up first was The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg which had great reviews but I overall found lacking. Erica Falck, a writer, ends up investigating the death of her childhood friend who’s an ice princess in all senses of the word (dies in a frozen bathtub, is cold and emotionally withholding).  There are a decent number of twists and turns, but I felt that the red herrings were a little too obvious so by the end, you knew what was up.

Also, I can’t really say anymore in detail without giving everything away, but there was a plot point that irritated me because it was almost medically infeasible. Aside from that, I think my main problem with the book was that there was minimal character development, they felt like sketches of real people.  For me, what distinguishes the Dragon Tattoo series or Tana French novels is how real, and honest, and unique the characters feel. You get a real sense for what the characters will do next, and why, and it makes it feel meaningful.

While this book was a reasonably compelling mystery, it was missing that…spark that makes me want to read more of an author’s novels.

More reviews at HelloKatieO!