Reviews for A chill rain in January

The average rating for A chill rain in January based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-12-11 00:00:00 Leesa Ayers Wright has a gift for creating unique protagonists and villains. No one is purely black and/or white. In this case, Staff Sargeant Karl Alberg, RCMP, is still trying to adjust to life as a divorced parent living in a small community far from his ex and their daughters. He likes his small community of Sechelt, knowing most of his neighbors, and the relative lack of serious crime. Senior Ramona Orlitzki has gone walk about from the nursing home floor of the local hospital. Ramona, a popular local woman, has become increasingly vague and confused as she aged; some moments she seems fine, others she is lost. What state was she in when she packed up a few items of clothing and walked out of the hospital? Where is she now? Near the same time, reclusive Zoe Strachan gets a visit from her brother. Benjamin has had a succession of jobs and marriages, but hasn't succeeded in them. He always needs money. In contrast, Zoe has carefully managed hers and is comfortably independent. Benjamin has tried to borrow money unsuccessfully from Zoe before, so this time he tries blackmail. Zoe is an interesting woman with an uncontrollable temper and a serious lack of empathy. She has used a diary of sorts, her scribblers, to help diffuse her rage. Benjamin found a few with some incriminating information. Zoe is comfortable with the accommodations she has made in life. She is not going to let Benjamin destroy it. The two stories interweave with escalating suspense. This is a very satisfying mystery for anyone who enjoys a good story, well-developed characters, and unexpected plotting. Highly recommended as a title and a series. Readalikes: Louise Penny's Three Pines Armand Gamache series; Tim Johnston - The Current; Robert Dugoni - My Sister's Grave; Kelley Armstrong - City of the Lost; Giles Blunt - Forty Words for Sorrow; Inger Ash Wolfe - The Calling; J.A. Menzies - Shadow of a Butterfly; J.E. Barnard - When the Flood Falls; Kjell Eriksson - The Princess of Burundi. Pace: Fast Characters: Complex, interesting; most are likeable Story: Intricately plotted Writing style: Compelling Tone: Suspenseful; strong sense of place Frame: Sunshine Coast, B.C. Canada; contemporary Theme: Small town police

Review # 2 was written on 2019-12-31 00:00:00 Joanna Fralick 2.4/5 This is an odd one. It's fairly well written most of the time (although sometimes it interrupts conversation scenes with long paragraphs of exposition about a character's background), but it's weirdly structured, told mostly in the POVs of three characters: Zoe Strachan, a middle-aged, seductive psychopath; Ramona Orlitzki, a 75-year-old woman; and Karl Alberg, staff sergeant in the Sunshine Coast division of the RCMP, and apparently the protagonist of this series, yet the least interesting aspect of the whole thing. It's been a long time since I read a book where the protagonist was almost entirely inconsequential to the main plot of his own novel, but there you are. Alberg is bland and typical, and he serves almost no purpose. It's almost as if Wright struggles sometimes to keep his role in the whole thing relevant, because the conflict that sparks this chain of events didn't need him to get the ball rolling and was hardly affected by him once he got involved. The most interesting chapters involved Ramona, who escapes her old folks' home and eludes the entire town in her little adventure; and Zoe, the one who did it, whom we see commit murder early on, whom the novel is primarily focused on. She steals the show here. She's cold, detached, and we can feel it. Wright conveys that aspect well. My fingers got a little stiff from how cold she was. But Zoe's all the novel really has going for it. Everything that occurs in Chill Rain occurs because the story would drag for far too long if it didn't. It occurs for the sake of coincidental convenience. One character just happens to be there, or there, or THERE, even if it doesn't make much logical sense. There's barely a case here. The story is hardly interesting and filled with characters who don't do much, and it is riddled with seemingly endless shortcuts. Oh, well...