- Hardcover: 381 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Fiction; 1st ed edition (Feb 8 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0002255146
- ISBN-13: 978-0002255141
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.5 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 476 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #657,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
As John Farrow's Ice Lake opens, a corpse, shot through the neck, is found under the ice in a fishing hut on a frozen lake near Montreal. It's the dead of winter in a region that Farrow (a pseudonym for literary author Trevor Ferguson, whose critically acclaimed novels include The Fire Line) knows like the back of his hand: its back alleys and distant suburbs, its ethnic diversity and big city evil, the long black nights and searingly bright days of its unrelenting winters. He also reveals intimate knowledge of the diverse power groups that drive the novel's plot: the biker gangs, the Mohawk Warriors, the Mob, the bigwigs in the lucrative pharmaceutical industry looking to cash in on an AIDS cure, the various police forces with their petty animosities and territorial conflicts.
Since the advent of Sherlock Holmes, though, most detective thrillers stand or fall on the qualities of their lead character. In Detective Émile Cinq-Mars (whom he introduced in the bestselling City of Ice), Ferguson has created a man of genuine emotions, highly ethical yet thoroughly practical, an old-style, straight-ahead cop. He doesn't leap tall buildings (or frozen lakes) in a single bound, but he knows how to keep digging in his own dogged style. A likable lead detective, a wintry ice maze of a plot, and a supporting cast of characters some of whom are patently vicious and others satisfyingly complex all make Ice Lake a captivating thriller. --Mark Frutkin
From Publishers Weekly
A taut and gripping mystery is on offer in Farrow's quietly powerful follow-up to City of Ice, but only once the reader gets past the jarring reverse flashbacks in the first two chapters. The opening few pages contain an information-packed summation of the novel's plot: two New York City cops have come to Montreal to consult with Det. Sgt. mile Cinq-Mars and his partner Bill Mathers about suspicious AIDS deaths in Manhattan, which have been linked to two Montreal women known only as Saint Lucy and Camille. The story then backtracks three days to the discovery of a dead body under the ice at the Lake of Two Mountains, northwest of Montreal; when it backtracks again to December of the previous year, we learn who the dead body is, and how and why he got there. Once everything becomes chronological, the novel turns into a Hitchcockian tale of betrayal and competing interests, where the audience sees more than any of the individual characters do, and suspense is generated by knowing who the bad guys are and watching as the good guys are gulled (or killed) by them. Canadian author Farrow's style is very low-key and quiet, but it creates a kind of cold stillness in which every revelation echoes for miles; a stillness resides in Cinq-Mars, too, whose experience of human behavior gives him insight into the actions of everyone from Mohawk Indians to his dying father. In the end, it's the characters, not the mystery, despite its clever twists and turns, that carries Farrow's tale. Agent, Anne McDermid.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important Canadian Literary Thriller ----,
By A Customer
Born and bred on the shores of Montreal, I cannot but feel the "draw" of these two beautiful "thrillers" so incredibly placed, and most certainly, incredibly characterized. What more is it that we are all to be looking for? As a former female English-Quebec-Canadian, and now a most integrated Chicagoan native, I have become to feel myself sadly alienated and foreign to all that goes on in that incredible "City of Ice". Who is John Farrow--OR--Trevor Ferguson that he may tantalize us such, and bring us home with this wonderful character that he has created. Can he! or does he exist !? - Cinq-Mars. I must tell you, that he is in my heart.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cool off in the summer with this one.,
By A Customer
The setting and the character of Cinq-Mars make this a better-than-your-average detective-mystery series. Cinq-Mars, a bit larger than life, loves his city of Montreal, which makes me want to visit someday, even without the chance of meeting the curmudgeonly detective. The way the plot unfolds is different and interesting. Most of the characterizations are very good, with the exception of Camille, the reason why I gave this a 4 star rating. Read the book and decide for yourself - wouldn't want to give away anymore of the plot than the reader already gets in the first chapter!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) 5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important Canadian Literary Thriller ----,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
Born and bred on the shores of Montreal, I cannot but feel the "draw" of these two beautiful "thrillers" so incredibly placed, and most certainly, incredibly characterized. What more is it that we are all to be looking for? As a former female English-Quebec-Canadian, and now a most integrated Chicagoan native, I have become to feel myself sadly alienated and foreign to all that goes on in that incredible "City of Ice". Who is John Farrow--OR--Trevor Ferguson that he may tantalize us such, and bring us home with this wonderful character that he has created. Can he! or does he exist !? - Cinq-Mars. I must tell you, that he is in my heart.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Saint Lucy, dupe or conspirator?,
By Doris Lane - Published on Amazon.com
The ice-ridden locale is ideal for the cold hearts at play here. The lake is a frozen wasteland where danger and confusion, snow and ice, compete in masking and unmasking and masking again a criminal conspiracy that is tundra vast. What we don't know is this: Saint Lucy, dupe or conspirator?Lucy's lover and partner in crime is found dead underneath an ice hole in a fishing shack on the lake, (but who is he, really?). Nefarious Québécois mobsters, police from competing jurisdictions, industrial spies, a femme fatale in Camille Choquette, who makes Lizzie Borden look a sweetheart, all skate in biotech espionage, psychopathic murder, Indian Warrior politics, crime syndicates, and the coldest hearted capitalism. Ice Lake, by respected Canadian novelist Trevor Ferguson writing as John Farrow, follows City of Ice, which introduced the brilliant and charming, moody and maddening police detective Emil Cinq-Mars, a maverick in the Montreal PD, whose heart harkens back to an earlier time in the city's rough past when vice ruled and cops broke heads.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cool off in the summer with this one.,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
The setting and the character of Cinq-Mars make this a better-than-your-average detective-mystery series. Cinq-Mars, a bit larger than life, loves his city of Montreal, which makes me want to visit someday, even without the chance of meeting the curmudgeonly detective. The way the plot unfolds is different and interesting. Most of the characterizations are very good, with the exception of Camille, the reason why I gave this a 4 star rating. Read the book and decide for yourself - wouldn't want to give away anymore of the plot than the reader already gets in the first chapter! |
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