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Ice Run An Alex McKnight Novel Alex McKnight Novels Steve Hamilton 9780312301217 Books

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Ice Run An Alex McKnight Novel Alex McKnight Novels Steve Hamilton 9780312301217 Books

The plot moves fast. The cold and snow of Michigan's UP feels real enough. And the book has its moments of good writing. Still, it almost seems that this is a repeat performance of the previous book in the series. There just doesn't feel as if there is anything new.
If anything, the plot is too complicated for the hard-boiled genre. There are crimes in three different time periods, and it is difficult for the reader to keep events straight, to remember who was doing what and to whom.
The violence is too much, too frequent and does little to the advance the plot. It almost seems that the author threw in a knock-down fight now and then when nothing else was happening. Violence can be useful in the proper dosage, but violence, per se, is not drama.
Lastly, there should be a rule against having criminals confess to a tape recorder or VCR camera. This deus en [sic] machina device has been used far too many times by fiction writers, and I groan when I see it coming. It's just too easy a way out. The author uses it here in awkward fashion.
I've read all of the Alex McKnight books and have enjoyed them, particularly the early ones, but this one is a letdown. I'll hope for better with the next one.


Tags : Ice Run: An Alex McKnight Novel (Alex McKnight Novels) [Steve Hamilton] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <div> The thing was sitting on the hallway carpet, right in front of the door to our room. . . I pulled the napkin off. Underneath was a hat,Steve Hamilton,Ice Run: An Alex McKnight Novel (Alex McKnight Novels),Minotaur Books,0312301219,Mystery & Detective - General,McKnight, Alex (Fictitious character);Fiction.,Private investigators;Michigan;Upper Peninsula;Fiction.,Upper Peninsula (Mich.);Fiction.,American Mystery & Suspense Fiction,Family violence,Fiction,Fiction - Mystery Detective,Fiction Mystery & Detective General,Fiction Mystery & Detective Hard-Boiled,McKnight, Alex (Fictitious character),Michigan,Mystery & Detective - Series,Mystery & DetectivePrivate Investigators,MysterySuspense,Private investigators,ThrillersGeneral,Upper Peninsula,McKnight, Alex (Fictitious cha

Ice Run An Alex McKnight Novel Alex McKnight Novels Steve Hamilton 9780312301217 Books Reviews

It's January, and Alex McKnight is hoping to beat the first really killer storm so that he can spend a romantic weekend with Natalie Reynaud - a weekend at the Ojibway Hotel in Soo, Michigan. This is Alex's suggestion, made when Natalie offers to come to his place for a change. He looks around and sees, "One single bed. The old couch, sagging in the middle. Two rough wooden tables. This sad wreck of a place, after fifteen years of living all by myself. This is what she'd see. My God.", and realizes that his relationship with Natalie isn't ready for her to see this. Not yet.

As with so many things in Alex's life, getting to the Ojobway isn't easy and takes much longer than he had expected, but he does make it. He and Natalie have dinner, where an elderly gentleman seems to know Alex. Alex doesn't recognize him, and neither does Natalie. They are unaware that the man leaves the Ojibway and winds up freezing to death . They don't know why he leaves his hat, a really good homburg, full of snow and ice, on the floor outside their hotel room.

Alex takes the hat to the police when he realizes that it belongs to Simon Grant, who is the man from the hotel. After telling Chief Maven the story of the man and the hat, and his curiousity about why Simon Grant seemed to know him, Alex gives Chief Maven the hat to return to the family. Chief Maven tells Alex to leave it at that, not to bother the family, to just walk away from the whole thing. Past readers of Steve Hamilton's books featuring Alex McKnight know that this isn't going to happen.

The truly curious twist is that Simon Grant truly didn't know Alex McKnight. He recognized Natalie. Once this fact surfaces, the reader learns a whole lot more about Natalie, and her family, and why she is the person she is. This goes a long way toward explaining the attraction that she has for Alex, and vice versa.

Ice Run focuses a great deal on the past, a past of which Natalie has only a very partial awareness. The circumstances of Simon Grant's death, and the subsequent three-on-one beating given to Alex by Grant's family after the funeral, impel Natalie, reluctantly, to speak to her mother after a silence of five years. The ripple effects of Natalie meeting her mother are catastrophic for the three families involved. The intricacies of the plot make it difficult to say more without saying too much.

All of this takes place in the dead of winter in northern Michigan, the manifestations of which become almost another character in Ice Run. The beating Alex suffers at the hands of Grant's children is brutal. While Alex loses no body parts to frost-bite in Ice Run, there are several scenes where winter in all its savage and impartial splendor nearly kills him. And yet he persists.

Ice Run showcases Alex McKnight's character. There are other people around him (Vinnie, Leon, Jackie) who sometimes see to the heart of the matter at hand more quickly than Alex. Natalie is certainly better at assessing a situation with some degree of common sense, recognizing when to dance around a situation as opposed to barging in head first. But Alex, once he's made up his mind, pursues the truth with a dogged determination, a persistence in the face of adversity and common sense which most of us (I suspect) lack. He's no Galahad - he lacks the looks, and the guile. But he embodies, as few men do, the best parts of what we consider to be the knightly code of honor. He believes, literally, that the truth will set you free. What he endures in the pursuit of truth matters not in the long run. And Alex endures a hell of a lot in Ice Run.

Ice Run is the sixth in the Alec McKnight series. It is not necessary to have read the previous five in order to enjoy Ice Run, although I certainly recommend it, if for no other reason than the wonderful writing. Hamilton keeps getting better and better; it is a joy as a reader to watch that improvement as each book comes out. If you like a good plot, multi-dimensional characters, an incredible setting, and writing that sweeps you into another world . . . then Hamilton should be on your list. Ice Run should be on your list.
I enjoy all of Steve Hamilton's Alex McNight books. This one, however, was not a favorite. Vinnie was not a prominent presence but Leon Prudell was, an all right trade-off. I like Leon. He's a little quirky, deceptively competent and skilled, and is unconditionally loyal to his ex-partner Alex.
My problem with this book was Natalie Raynaud. I didn't like her. Even though she lost her partner on duty as a cop and had a history of neglect and abuse as a child, I still didn't care for the character. I felt sorry for Alex as the relationship continued. Alex takes a terrible beating from the Grant brothers in the book's beginning, the first of a few punishing fights he endures. After telling Alex their relationsip won't work, Natalie shows up the morning after the fight, sees what condition Alex is in (should have been hospitalized), gathers him up and takes him to her home in Canada. Does she care for him, tend to his injuries, make the man soup, give him a place and a chance to rest as any friend would have done, male or female? No. She initiates sex with him and then drives him here to there and back in the dismal cold chasing down clues. It turns out the mystery centers around her. Frankly most everything in the book centers around Natalie. I ended up seeing Natalie as a very self-involved person, as people with excessive emotional baggage often are -- and Alex deserves better. He repeatedly put his life on the line for her and despite her saying she was trying to protect Him by pushing him away, I didn't buy it. I thought Alex's bartender-friend Jackie's expression of concern about Natalie and his subsequent warning early on was spot-on and served as foreshadowing for what was to come.
I just started Hamilton's next book in the series, A Stolen Season, in which Natalie's name appears again in the first chapter. I don't see this relationship going much further and hope that it doesn't.
Another reviewer commented on the convoluted and confusing plot of Ice Run. I agree. There was a lot of bouncing around in time, location and characters, and it became a little hard to follow.
Regardless, Steve Hamilton is still a terrific writer. I enjoy his style, the cold and moody setting in the UP, the characters in Paradise who have become favorites. I've been to Paradise, MI, up to Lake Superior in November when the wind is blowing and the waves are wild and huge, crashing into Whitefish Point. He describes it well.
It takes place in the UP, what more does one need?!! Easy, enjoyable read, i will read his next book
Being a nutty hard back book collector, I was very pleased
great book
The plot moves fast. The cold and snow of Michigan's UP feels real enough. And the book has its moments of good writing. Still, it almost seems that this is a repeat performance of the previous book in the series. There just doesn't feel as if there is anything new.
If anything, the plot is too complicated for the hard-boiled genre. There are crimes in three different time periods, and it is difficult for the reader to keep events straight, to remember who was doing what and to whom.
The violence is too much, too frequent and does little to the advance the plot. It almost seems that the author threw in a knock-down fight now and then when nothing else was happening. Violence can be useful in the proper dosage, but violence, per se, is not drama.
Lastly, there should be a rule against having criminals confess to a tape recorder or VCR camera. This deus en [sic] machina device has been used far too many times by fiction writers, and I groan when I see it coming. It's just too easy a way out. The author uses it here in awkward fashion.
I've read all of the Alex McKnight books and have enjoyed them, particularly the early ones, but this one is a letdown. I'll hope for better with the next one.