Book Review: The Frozen Girl

When the body of a woman is found frozen in the Neponset River, emergency room nurse Jessie Novak gets the shock of her life when she realises the body is that of Sheila Logan, who she worked closely with for years at the Boston City Hospital before she mysteriously disappeared months ago. As Jessie partners with Detective Sam Dallas to unmask the killer, what starts off as a seemingly straight-forward case soon devolves into something more lethal following the death of Sheila's neighbour and her own life comes into danger. Being a nurse herself, Roberta Gately is in her element when setting up scenes against the hospital backdrop and her decision to tell the story through the lens of Jessie offers a unique twist on a police procedural, but for the most part, what should unfold with an urgency akin to a medical thriller instead struggles to gain momentum before finally sputtering out. The paper-thin characters do nothing to redeem an implausible plot. A predictable tick-all-the-genre-boxes exercise.