Deep Freeze is the 10th novel in the Flowers series, and as always, Sandford devises a bizarre plot for his hero to untangle. Set in the winter chill of the northern Minnesota town of Trippton, the novel is both a murder mystery and a satire of small-town life … Flowers’s adventures are a riot, in part because of the author’s belief — which he shared with me — that most criminals are remarkably stupid.
Sandford...details the investigation into the circumstances of Gina’s death with both empathy and intelligence. And above all, he infuses the proceedings with the sense of humor that has become a hallmark of the Virgil Flowers series. The humor that permeates Deep Freeze is impressive in its range, from innocent dad jokes to the blackest humor, from the lowest form of scatological references to Elizabethan literature callbacks … Deep Freeze is a wacky but heartfelt look at murder and mayhem in the Minnesota cold. For all its wry bluntness, it’s a gracious novel that doesn’t condescend to any of the characters it depicts, no matter how hard-up, self-sabotaging, or unlucky.
Typically, authors write crime novels in one of two ways. Either the reader knows who the bad guy is before the protagonist, or they’re in the dark along with the lead character, trying to solve things and connect the dots as the story unfolds. Sandford shakes things up here by mixing both formulas, which pays off in the end. Readers might know more than Virgil Flowers, but they don’t know everything. Sandford uses that intrigue, and the reader’s quest to discover the whole truth will propel them forward, where he has plenty of twists (and more than a few laughs) planted along the way.
While Virgil is flailing around in the dark the readers of the story know who the murderer is from the start. The fun then becomes getting Virgil to know as much as the reader does … All of this action makes for an immensely readable and likable book. Virgil is the star of the show but Sandford also creates a motley crew to surround him. These include the suspects, the local townspeople and the local members of law enforcement. They all combine to bring heart and humor to the story, while also maintaining the fierceness of the crime which has been committed.
Sandford’s fine 10th Virgil Flowers novel takes the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent back to the little Mississippi River town of Trippton … Identifying the killer (who is known to the reader) in the Hemming case isn’t any easier for Virgil than tracking down Jesse and stopping the production and sale of Barbie Os. Along the way to the satisfying ending, Virgil displays the rough humor and rough justice that make him such an appealing character.
The investigation is every bit as routine as it sounds, and it’s nice for Virgil that Sandford has thrown in an unrelated complication: the arrival of LA gumshoe Margaret Griffin, who’s gotten the Minnesota governor’s support in serving a federal cease and desist order against Virgil’s classmate Jesse McGovern, who’s been doing a brisk mail-order business hawking her X-rated creations, Barbie O and Boner Ken. On second thought—since the Barbie knockoffs get Virgil beaten up by four oversized females and his truck burned to the ground—it may be less nice for Virgil than for his fan base.
