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Joe Kurtz, ex-PI, has been out of Attica only four months, after serving a twelve year sentence for manslaughter, when he finds himself bombarded by hit men hired by the Farinos, an upstate New York crime family interested in making him dead. And then there's a dying violinist who thinks Kurtz might still be a PI and asks him to look into the case of a dead child killer who just might not be dead. The two plots soon converge, in a clash of bumbling Farino family bodyguards, the lovely and dangerous Farino daughter Angelina Farino Ferrara, two crooked cops who would just love to catch on-parole Kurtz carrying a gun, a freezing cold Buffalo winter, and the most dangerous element of all -- a serial killer hiding behind a big name right out in the open. HARD FREEZE, Dan Simmons's second book about this tough, relentless anti-hero Joe Kurtz, is hardboiled, gritty, and full of dead bodies. How many were there? I never managed to keep count but the total kept rising, Kurtz carrying out a few too many of his own executions for me to be comfortable, and the bad guy spurred onward by the cheesiest motivation imaginable to justify his horrible treatment of teenage girls. The dialogue also left a lot to be desired; no Elmore Leonard here. Still, the story is fast paced with just a hint of heartless romance, characters who thankfully remain true to their type, and a justice for the bad guy terrible enough to satisfy even Joe Kurtz. If you like tough and bloody hardboiled tales about cruelty and violence, ex-cons and crooked cops, and outside-the-law heros who never give up fighting for their own, HARD FREEZE is sure to satisfy.
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