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A Cold and Lonely Place
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A Cold and Lonely Place
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A Cold and Lonely Place
Audiobook8 hours

A Cold and Lonely Place

Written by Sara J. Henry

Narrated by Abby Craden

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Freelance writer Troy Chance is snapping photos of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace when the ice-cutting machine falls silent. Encased in the ice is the shadowy outline of a body. Troy's assigned to write an in-depth feature on the dead man, who was the privileged son of a wealthy Connecticut family who had been playing at a blue collar life in this Adirondack village. And the deeper Troy digs into his life and mysterious death, the murkier things become. After the victim's sister comes to town and a string of disturbing incidents unfold, it's clear someone doesn't want the investigation to continue. Troy doesn't know who to trust, and what she ultimately finds out threatens to shatter the serenity of these mountain towns.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 5, 2013
ISBN9781624063992
Unavailable
A Cold and Lonely Place

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Reviews for A Cold and Lonely Place

Rating: 3.7222222222222223 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm not a mystery fan, but enjoy the occasional psychological thriller, especially with twists (unreliable narrators, etc,). I also love books set in cold and lonely places, so when I saw this available in my library I thought I'd try it. It was compulsively readable, I'll give it that. But all the red herrings were irritating, as the plot marched along to a pretty unremarkable resolution. And please, Sara Henry, give me a break from all the descriptions of meals eaten! About every few pages, our heroine is starving, or has a steaming cup of tea .... Boring.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    While I'm not necessarily a fan of her style of writing this story just intrigued me from the start. The mystery of finding a body frozen in the ice, someone known, adding to the mix the winter scene and the remoteness of the location all added up to a great story with a satisfactory ending!
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I see only two possibilities: (1) the author has managed to never see the writing advice about “show, don’t tell” or (2) the author decided to throw that advice to the wind and go her own way. No matter, because the mind-numbing narrative combined with the reader’s flat voice had me hunting for the stop-button a mere 5% into the audiobook. This was a new author for me, but not one I am likely to try again.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    By Sara J. HenryBroadway/Crown/Random House, 294 pgs978-0-307-71843-3Submitted by Crown Publishing GroupRating: 3.5Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. - Ian MacLaren (Rev. John Watson)It is winter in Lake Placid, New York, the Adirondacks, and so bitterly bone-numbingly cold that your eyelashes will freeze if you stay out for any length of time, say, three minutes. Winter is a character here, imposing itself on everyone and everything. It must be respected. (I have a dear friend who contends that hell is actually cold.) The land, the Adirondacks, is also a character, integral to the plot. Troy Chance, freelance journalist, is covering the construction of the annual Winter Carnival ice palace for the local newspaper. This entails lots of men and heavy equipment and gigantic blocks of ice. They dig these ice blocks out of Saranac Lake to construct the ice palace. All is going according to plan until they find that one of the ice blocks they dig up contains the body of Tobin Winslow, a newly-arrived-in-town mystery man.Troy knew Tobin; he dated Jessamyn, one of Troy's (Troy is a she) housemates. Tobin has been missing for weeks and everyone assumed he had just blown out of town the same way he blew in. There are no visible injuries to the body and no obvious cause of death. Is it murder, suicide or accident? And if the death was not murder then where is Tobin's truck? Jessamyn, of course, is suspected early on because she's the girlfriend. Troy herself is questioned as a housemate of the dead man's girlfriend. And no, she didn't like Tobin at all. She considered him little more than a frat boy slumming it, for reasons of his own, in an insular hard-scrabble mountain town.Troy's editor at the paper asks her to write a series of articles on Tobin's life. She reluctantly agrees and as soon as she begins researching and asking questions a hornet's nest buzzes to furious life. In short order there are: hang-up calls in the middle of the night, threatening emails and notes, someone lets the air out of her tires, someone breaks into Tobin's cabin and ransacks the place. The further Troy probes the murkier the story becomes. Then Tobin's sister Win arrives in Lake Placid, drawn by the articles Troy has written. The two quickly form a dynamic duo to find out what happened to Tobin Winslow.There are no spoilers here. Suffice it to say that the secrets uncovered among family and friends of the deceased are potent enough to scramble your brain and require years of therapy. Page 195 is a whopper, I'm telling you. The metaphor is keys. Keys figure prominently. Tobin's keys are missing. He kept a key under a flowerpot on his porch and who knew it was there? Turns out there's a safe deposit box but where is the key to it? No one locks their doors in this neck of the Adirondacks but they begin to do so before this story is finished.Problems first, get them out of the way, there are only a couple. First, there is a subplot involving Jessamyn and her long-lost father that struck me as a distraction. I wanted to swat it like a housefly. Second, the last chapter should've been titled "Epilogue." Each character is addressed in his or her own paragraph or two, telling you exactly what happened to everyone involved, laid out for us as if we were middle-schoolers. I could visualize the big red bow tied around the story. But those are minor stumbles, really.A Cold and Lonely Place is a good mystery. It is not a thriller; there's no gore; and it's not particularly suspenseful, at least not in the way we've come to understand the term in the time of James Patterson, et al. I don't recall even the suggestion of blood. This novel doesn't need the special effects department; it reminded me strongly of Agatha Christie. Then I discovered that the author's first book won the Agatha Award. Troy Chance is an intriguing character. You don't find many female leads who are flawed and fiercely independent and are allowed to remain so, with no man coming along by the end of the book to melt their defenses, blah blah blah, and everything goes gooey. No thank you. There's no extraneous love story harnessed to the works and do you KNOW what a relief that is? Instead of improbable romantic entanglements we get to feast on authentic female friendships. Troy remains stubbornly in character throughout the novel, triumphantly imperfect, taking whatever lumps come her way as a result. We don't even know what Troy looks like. Read that again. Here: WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TROY LOOKS LIKE. The freedom is heady, yes?The plot is well paced. It begins with a bang on page one with the discovery of the body. There are no lulls here but do not expect the story to get in your face or scream at you. It follows you around and whispers, makes suggestions; maybe prods you in the ribs with a finger. The story accrues. If you are patient it will reward you. A Cold and Lonely Place is the second book in Sara J. Henry's series starring journalist Troy Chance, following the Agatha Award-winning debut Learning to Swim. I'm gonna go to the library now and pick up the first book.And I have exciting news about this one! The lovely folks at Crown have provided me with five copies to give away. Come back tomorrow and found out how to win a copy for yourself or to give as a holiday gift.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Set in remote and chilly upstate New York, this is the story of a small town reporter, Troy Chance (she's a woman), whose roommate's boyfriend's body is found under the ice of a frozen lake. Troy barely knew Tobin who had only recently moved to the area - and didn't particularly like him - but she is given the unlikely assignment of writing a series of articles profiling him, his upbringing, life and eventual death. As she investigates, she will get to know both her roommate and Tobin's family better, and uncover some tightly held family secrets. She will also eventually uncover the truth about Tobin's death.This is a mystery of sorts, but it's a very slowly developing one and I found it quite irritating. There is just so much extraneous detail! It's not enough for her to buy something in Canada, we have to be told that she had obtained Canadian money to allow her to do this. We have to be told the details of every meal, the make of car that everyone drives, have thought processes spelled out in detail. It makes the book feel sluggish. Moreover, I actively disliked the main character (and narrator), which isn't automatically a deal breaker but it does make it harder to enjoy a book.On the positive front, the book is rich in atmosphere - you feel cold reading it! And I liked the fact that the story doesn't throw in any silly melodramatic twists just for the sake of it. It feels plausible.This is actually a sequel to the author's first book, Learning to Swim, which I haven't read. The events from that book are referred to but this works well as a standalone story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this sequel the day after I finished Learning to Swim. It always amazes me when an author can so authentically capture the emotions of all the characters in a novel, and Sara J. Henry seems to do this effortlessly. Her stories are flawless and keep you guessing all the way to the end. I am eagerly awaiting more books from this talented author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Troy Chance is still running her “boarding” house and still writing freelance articles for the local Lake Placid paper. As she is covering the harvesting of ice for the annual building of the ice castle, everything suddenly stops. The workers have uncovered a body floating under the ice. As Troy nears the site she is immediately struck by the fact that she recognizes the face under the ice, not a local man but someone she knows none-the-less. And, someone she in all honestly, did not care for very much.

    I enjoyed Ms. Henry’s Learning to Swim a great deal, so I knew when this book came out I would have to pick it up. Ms. Henry does not disappoint. I enjoy her writing style and her characters and appreciate the fact that her characters are not perfect people living perfect lives. The reader is allowed to get to know her characters as they go about the business of living their lives; lumps, bumps, insecurities and successes … all included.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    ”Sometimes you can tell what someone is like by the space they leave.”Winter in Lake Placid, New York; a body is found frozen in the ice of the lake by a journalist. Troy is a freelancer who also writes for the local newspaper, owns a large house with many extra rooms where she has boarders, mostly young male athletes, and now in book number two of the series, a young woman who has a connection to the deceased. As Troy writes her story, she finds clues amidst her research and uncovers secrets.There are only two books in the series so far, but I’m hooked by Troy and hope to read more of her.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a combination review for both of Sara J. Henry’s books featuring Troy Chance “Learning to Swim” and “A Cold and Lonely Place”. I am combining them because after reading the second book (Cold and Lonely) this weekend – I rushed to get the first book (Learning to Swim) and read both of them within about 48 hours. And even though I’d read them out of order (and the second book heavily references the first) – it didn’t matter. I was absolutely hooked by the author’s style and by her main character.Troy Chance is an extremely interesting character. Much of the choices she’s made in her life regarding her job, how far she chooses to live away from her family and her relationship status seem to make her seem like somewhat of a loner. When she reflects upon these choices, it seems as if she thinks that to be the case as well. But at the core of her, the reader discovers, the problem is not that she doesn’t care about other people, it is that she cares too much. Troy is incredibly empathetic without being overly emotional. She connects with the people she meets and the people she encounters in these two books in a way that I found very compelling. She makes their lives, their problems her own – and has a very difficult time when it comes time to break away.Several times in each book, Troy finds she has information that she can choose to give to a person whom it will greatly impact. She wrestles with the choices, and with the results. “Sometimes letting the truth out lets people heal, and sometimes it makes things worse. And you couldn’t really know which, until you did it, and sometimes only later.”I almost couldn’t put these books down. Not only was I drawn to this interesting main character and to the plots of the books – author Sara J. Henry’s writing style just washed over me. Her prose is clean, uncluttered and yet is still descriptive enough to pull the reader into the places and events as if they were actually there.These were well-written, interesting and at times suspenseful novels that I enjoyed a great deal. I’m hopeful I don’t have to wait too long for another Troy Chance book!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The second of Henry's Troy Chance novels, in which Troy gets a shot at making her name as an investigative journalist. She's called upon to investigate the death of a young man she knew who was found frozen in a lake.The investigation into the cause of the man's death itself causes other events to transpire. Human existence is a complicated affair, and isn't always wrapped up in a neat package like a whodunit.This non-traditional mystery series is shaping up to be a thoughtful take on human connections. I await the next installment.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Source: Publisher via NetGalley

    "A Cold and Lonely Place is the second book set in upstate New York that I’ve read in the last month, and I really liked it. Troy Chance is a freelance writer, formerly a sports reporter, living in Lake Placid, New York, a winter sports and tourist mecca. This particular investigation is into the freezing death of Tobin Winslow, an out-of-towner who dated one of Troy’s housemates. He is found frozen beneath a lake as a group is assembling the ice palace for the town’s annual Winter Carnival. It’s a harrowing scene, and it begins a harrowing investigation into a not-too-savory character. Troy writes a series of articles about Tobin, which is very different than reading about police officers investigating his death.

    The strength of the story is how Troy humanizes the deceased Tobin. In lots of crime novels, it seems the criminals are the center of the story instead of the victims. As much of a loner as Troy is (she’s not from Lake Placid, she lives far from her family and people she cares about), she does grow closer to people during the course of the investigation as well as to Tobin, a person she didn’t know well while she was alive.

    One minor quibble I have with the book is the large number of friends and relatives Troy has whom she uses as sounding boards during the course of the investigation. Those characters– her brother the police officer, a friend in the area, a police officer in Ottawa– are not very developed, but they may have been more developed in the first book of the series. In this book, she mostly contacts them by email or with brief visits, which is not enough time for me to really get to know them.

    A Cold and Lonely Place is not a fast-paced or overly creepy thriller, and that’s exactly the kind of book I’m in the mood for. The characters at the center of the story, including the deceased Tobin, are interesting people in an interesting setting. I’ll definitely be checking out the first book in the series, Learning to Swim."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the second book featuring Lake Placid freelance journalist Troy Chance (after Learning to Swim). The first book was an action-y mystery book while this one is more character focused with a little less tension. There is still a mystery--what happened to Tobin, the man who was found in the lake while workers were cutting ice blocks to prepare for the ice palace--but it is more of a "what happened" than a "who did this". The author does a great job introducing and developing the characters from the town along with the Lake Placid setting. Having Troy Chance assigned to write stories about Tobin after some unfortunate events in town was well done. I would definitely pick up another Troy Chance book in the future.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When a frozen body is removed from the lake, a local journalist begins an investigation that leads to much more than she suspected. Well written, lots of suspects and surprise ending.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A Cold and Lonely Place by Sara J. Henry is the second in her Troy Chance series, and the second I have read. While one does not need to read Learning To Swim to enjoy this book, I highly recommend it; it really was an excellent mystery. Henry has come back with another strong book, which is well written and contains relatable characters, an intriguing plot, which reveals more then merely solving mystery. While I would not list A Cold and Lonely Place as a suspense thriller, it is a solid mystery, which slowly reveals itself and keeps the reader engaged until the end. I would recommend A Cold and Lonely Place to anyone who enjoys a well-written mystery.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A Cold And Lonely PlacebySara J. HenryMy " in a nutshell" summary...A body is found frozen in the ice of a lake. Yikes!My thoughts after reading this book...This was a really fascinating mystery. I loved the setting...Lake Placid...and I loved the small town stuck in winter icy cold atmosphere. Troy has a big log house...and is a character from another book written by this author. She is a photographer/ writer...appears to be a bit of a loner...and takes in boarders...usually athletes in training. However...she allows Jessamyn to rent a room from her and it's Jessamyn's boyfriend who is found dead in the ice of a frozen lake. From this event Troy becomes involved with Jessamyn and Win...Tobin's /dead man's sister. The more Troy learns about Tobin...the more complicated this all becomes. It's aways so difficult to discuss a book like this one without giving too much of the story away! Just know that each chapter allows the reader to wonder more and more about these people and what actually happened. The characters are quite interesting...the mystery grows more and more mysterious...and...the build up to the ending is exquisite. What I loved most about this book...Ok...I loved the cold! Everything was crunchy and snowy and slippery...everyone was always sipping hot tea or yummy coffee. Everyone was always bundling up into warm cozy clothes or lighting stoves and fireplaces. Suspicious people were all over this town...it was a great cozy keep warm kind of mystery! I also loved knowing what Troy was eating...not sure why I liked this but I did!What I did not love...Troy was a bit odd...a loner...and I hated that I didn't read the book before this one. Final thoughts...This was a memorable nicely written cozy mystery...fun to read...fun to figure out the characters...and very enjoyable.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Troy Chance is a highly independent woman. She left her home and family in Tennessee and moved to Oregon to attend college at the age of seventeen. After completing college she eventually relocates to the Adirondack region of upstate New York, the Lake Placid/Saranac area. She worked for a few years as the sports editor for the local paper before becoming a freelance journalist. She's renting a house and sublets several of the bedrooms to various athletes and townsfolk. Her constant companion is her dog, Tiger. A Cold and Lonely Place begins with Troy watching the Winter Festival ice palace preparations when suddenly a body is discovered under the ice . . . the body of one of her roommate's missing boyfriend. Troy is immediately pulled into the investigation when she is asked to take pictures of the scene for the local police. She then breaks the news of Tobin's death to her roommate, Jessamyn. What follows is a discovery of the secrets and hidden past in both Tobin and Jessamyn's lives.Once again Troy is pulled into an investigation, but this time she is functioning more as an investigative journalist as she's been asked to write a series of articles about Tobin for the local paper. As Troy seeks answers to who Tobin was and how he wound up in their small town, she learns that appearances can be deceiving and that Tobin was much nicer than she ever knew. Tobin was running from a past but not from any mistakes he made but from his family and disappointment. Her search for the truth also unveils secrets of Jessamyn's past of abuse, neglect and disappointment. The only roommate that is fully developed and explored is Jessamyn, but she winds up becoming a good friend to Troy and vice versa. Troy is also befriended by Tobin's surviving sibling, his sister Jessica known as Win. Win plays a pivotal role in helping Troy uncover the truth about Tobin's past and life after he left his family. A Cold and Lonely Place seems to focus more on relationships and Ms. Henry does an admirable job in creating characters that you can relate to and be empathetic toward. The drama in this story comes more from Troy's reactions to the information she uncovers as well as how that information impacts others through her articles. Characters from Learning to Swim make reappearances, such as Canadian police detective Jameson, Paul and Philippe Dumond and their nanny/housekeeper Elise, as well as Troy's brother Simon, a police detective in Florida, and her longtime friend Baker. Jameson, Simon and Baker all function as sounding boards for Troy as well as advisers. It was fascinating to see the changes in relationships evolve as Win and Jessamyn go from being casual acquaintances to friends. At its heart A Cold and Lonely Place is a mystery but also a great read about family and relationships and their continued impact on our lives. I found A Cold and Lonely Place to be an amazing read and one that I enjoyed from beginning to end. If you enjoy mysteries and drama, then I strongly recommend you read A Cold and Lonely Place (if you haven't read Learning to Swim then add that to your TBR list as well . . . you won't be disappointed).
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book starts out rather slowly, definitely a character based mystery but I loved the setting of the book. I have never been to Lake Placid but it is a place I hope to get to one day. The story is unpeeled layer by layer, family secrets exposed and people who are not what they seem. Their are no big action scenes, no gory situations just a good solid story, with a likable lead character who works for a newspaper. Read her first book in this series, and look forward to her third.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Troy Chance, a free-lance reporter, is present for another story when a body is discovered frozen in a pond. It turns out to b that of Tobin Winslow, the boyfriend of one of her roommates. She hadn't particularly liked Tobin but, when she is assigned to write about his life, she is determined to be fair and honest. What she discovers is a lot of family secrets and soon she is wrapped up, not only in the mystery of Tobin's death but another from years before. She also finds her opinions about Tobin and many of her friends changing as she delves deeper into his history.This is the first Sara Henry novel I have read and I didn't realize it was the second in a series. There are numerous references to her first book, Learning to Swim. I didn't find this spoiled my enjoyment of A Cold and Lonely Place but reading the second book definitely made me want to read the first because I really enjoyed this novel.As much a character study as a mystery, the book takes you beyond the usual mystery novel. Henry has created characters who are much more than just props for a tale of murder and mayhem - they have background, foibles, and secrets - and, because of this, we care about them as much as we care about the solution to the mystery.She also does a great job of evoking place. The story takes place in the Adirondacks, a place I really know nothing about. After reading Henry's descriptions of it, though, I came away with a strong impression of a place which may be very, very cold in winter but where the inhabitants have learned to adapt and celebrate their winters - a perfect setting for this story about Tobin's death in a frozen pond and Troy's story celebrating his life. This novel definitely has layers.A Cold and Lonely Place is that rare mystery novel in which the characters are as important as the plot. Most such stories make me curious to know what happened; this book made me care about who it happened to.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This second novel which features Troy Chance from Learning to Swim, the author's first novel. A Cold and Lonely Place does not disappoint. Troy is photographing the making of The Winter Ice Palace on Lake Saranac when a body is found in the ice. It is the boyfriend of one of Troy's roommates, Jessamyn. His name is Tobin Winslow and Troy didn't really like him. But she ends up writing about the story for the local paper and then they request she write a three part story of his life. Tobin's sister, Win, comes to Lake Placid and helps Troy get the information she needs to write Tobin's story. The story really has two levels. First, how did Tobin end up under the ice, was it accidental death or murder. The second level is the story that Troy writes, and how her first impression and judgement of Tobin begins to change as she learns about his life and what brought this wealthy, privileged college drop-out to Lake Placid.This novel doesn't have any kind of twist at the end like Learning to Swim and is less a thriller than a mystery if that makes any sense. But I think the author goes deeper and gives the reader more. I only took away 1 star because the character of Win, seemed a little too good to be true.I enjoyed reading this so much, I then reread Learning to Swim and then this one again. Warning: Because Sara J Henry writes so well and this book takes place in winter, I was extra cold when reading it in my cold bed. So bundle up and enjoy. I look forward to the next Troy Chance novel.