Search - Snow Blind (Monkeewrench, Bk 4)

This is my first book by P. J. Tracy. Their writing is good, but the characterization lacked something for me. I think part of that is we were expected to have read their other books and already know the relationships of the main characters - nope! The plot lines didn't keep me on the edge of my seat either. I think I've read the plot with the isolated town full of women before - somewhere else. When the killer "just happened" to be in the basement of the brand new sheriff - that was unbelievable, and really didn't tie the plot together that well.

#4 in the Monkeewrench gang series, also featuring Minneapolis detectives Magozzi and Rolseth, who actually feature more prominently in this book than the computer-software geeks cum amateur sleuths. Someone's murdering people and then building snowmen around the corpses! And the first two victims are cops, no less. This eventually ties into another murder, another formerly-live snowman, found on a frozen lake up north and Magozzi and Rolseth end up having to traverse many miles in dangerous blizzard/ice conditions to try to make sense of it all.

I really, really like the characters in this series and the authors also do the whole 'Minnesota thing' very well. I find the writing style easy to read and the book overall was hard to put down. I did, however, figure the mystery out in this one way ahead of time so that cut down on the "thriller" part of it, and I was a bit disappointed with the wishy-washy ending. Still--you can’t quite go wrong with the Monkeewrench series.

I did enjoy this book, the writing was superb, as always! The Monkeewrench characters are not involved much in the book, but this is still a great read, with Magozzi and Rolseth taking the center stage. The ending was just a small bit disappointing to me, but not enough to turn me off of the book. Can't wait for the next book from this mother/daughter team!

To be honest Snow Blind isn't the high quality masterpiece that the initial Monkeewrench was. Although not as good as the predecessors and certainly more predictable than the other novels it is still a great read for anyone and not just fans of P.J. Tracy. I would advise anyone to START reading the series from the beginning.

Of their alternating protagonists, I actually prefer the detectives, but that's a personal choice. I appreciate the humor in their writing, offsetting the very serious subject of abuse with the completely inexperienced new Sheriff in Dundas County. Grace and the gang hardly featured at all, being that I really like that group and the technology angle, I was somewhat disappointed but I didn't feel the story was any the less for that.

It's not quite right to call this a mystery, but it doesn't quite fall under the police-procedural heading, either. Whatever it is, it's a lot of fun. If you haven't yet discovered Monkeewrench, you should.

I happened to order Snow Blind from PBS without realizing this is the 4th book in their Monkeewrench series. I did read the first two: Monkeewrench and Live Bait and couldn't wait to read Snow Blind. Dead Run (#3) is next!

It was a relief finding out that the sequels can be read as stand-alones. I really enjoy the characters in this series -- they add as much to the story as the plot. Even though I suspected I knew "who did it", I still couldn't put the book down after I reached the last third of the book.

The Monkeewrench series is easy reading, dealing with murder without a lot of gore, and the characters are quite enjoyable at the same time.

Not their best collaboration, but enjoyable.