Another in the Monkeewrench series. Very good read. Two bodies are found in snowmen in the park. Turns out they were cops. Why were they killed? When another body is found out of the twin cities there is a question of whether or not it is a copycat. Another good read in this series and hard to put down. I didn't really like the ending I felt it was a little unfinished, but I understood why it ended the way it did.

Listened to the audiobook in the car. This is in the Monkeewrench series, although the Monkeewrench crew play a less central role in this one. Their role is important, but they don't appear that often. The reading is good, with the phone calls being done in a hollow sort of way, very different. Magozzi and Rolseth play central roles as does the new sheriff of Dundas County to the north of Minneapolis, Iris Rikker. The crimes start with the bodies of two policeman being found inside snowman at a snowman competition and thus ensure a public eye is being laid on the case from the start. Iris Rikker is a newbie police officer, a former teacher, but well aware of her own shortcomings. I really enjoyed her as a character. The compound of Bitterroot, a safe town for abused women starts coming up during the investigation and plays a role in the outcome. Altogether an interesting premise with moral questions and no easy answers.

Best of the Monkeewrench novels I've read thus far! I missed Grace and the gang though as the novel focused more on Magozzi and Gino this go round.

This book wasn't anything special. The Monkeewrench team is what makes this series fun for me, and they basically had a cameo in this one. Without them, this book was just another mediocre mystery with a predictable ending. (Which, by the way, wouldn't have been predictable if the authors hadn't already basically used this solution in an earlier book. Recycling your own plots is bad form.)

4.5* rounded up.

Two police officers are discovered dead inside snowmen during a winter storm. There is a potential link to the murder of a parole officer in a rural community. Leo and Gino work with brand new sheriff Iris, and there is some involvement of the Monkeywrench crew.

I liked Iris and I always like Gino and Leo. The plot was tight (once I had Laura and Ruth and Emily and Alice straight in my mind). I am deducting half a star for the relentless descriptions of snow and ice and weather generally. It was a page turner again, but it didn't move Grace and Leo forward at all.

Pretty good... though the all men are bad and we women stick together got a bit too much for me. I still love the camaraderie between. The main cop characters and the monkeewrench gang and also the other cast of characters you meet along the way. It’s all believable and feels real.

3,5 stars. A quick read with lots of twists and turns. Very entertaining if you’re looking for an easy story to escape into.

I dig a compelling mystery and this book definitely had moments of brilliance. It also had moments of "Wait, did I just read that?" Clichéd phrases in otherwise interesting stories are so painful.
Also, for a book written by two women as part of a series featuring a strong female protagonist there were too many parts that felt decidedly (and distractingly) anti-woman.

I'm also of the mind that fictional mysteries should include resolutions. Mostly because I think creating a mystery is a whole lot simpler than seeing that mystery through to its big reveal. If that makes me an unereasonable and/or needy mystery reader, so be it.

Ultimately, this was a quick and not unenjoyable read, and I'm never going to look at snowmen the same way, so there's that.

This story also gets bonus points in my book for being written by a mother/daughter duo who wrote the book together via alternating chapters. I find that equal parts amusing and impressive, and not just because it was something I once tried to do with a friend in college (before quickly realizing I wasn't as interested in where our would-be story might be going as much as I was befuddled by the pieces he added to it).

[Three stars for easy-to-turn pages.]