The Coldest Mile

So I looked at my library catalog and saw that THE COLDEST MILE was on the shelves and put a hold on it. Meanwhile, I took my daughter to the regional branch on a Sunday. Regional branches are the large, economy size libraries in our system. They tend to have more books, deeper collections and are open on Sunday. So if we don't make our usual Saturday library appointment at our local branch, we can still go to the regional on Sunday. Our house is kind of equidistant between two regional branches. One tends to have more new kids books for my daughter and the other is more picked over but has the extra large teddy bears she likes to read to. The latter one is also closer to Whole Foods if we need to stop there. This was the case that Sunday. I needed some more sore throat tea for work and so we went that direction. Had we gone to the other one, I could have picked up THE COLDEST MILE right there, but now I had to wait a week until I could go to my local branch to pick up my hold copy. What it really meant was that I would start another book while waiting and probably not finish it before Saturday came around. Of course, this was the case and I still haven't returned to that book.

THE COLDEST MILE continues the story of Chase, the former wheelman for his grandfather's crew of thieves. Chase is acting rather suicidal following the events of THE COLD SPOT and just kind of goes through the motions of staying alive. Like that novel, he is looking to reconnect with his grandfather and speaks to his dead relatives in his dreams. He almost strikes me as a negative version of Frank, the character from the TRANSPORTER movie series. He obsesses with cars, doesn't like guns and will kick your ass if he has to.

Just like THE COLD SPOT, this novel moves in an episodic format - Chase with the mobsters, hooking up with a crew, finding his grandfather and so on. It moves the story along, but still seems kind of choppy. The writing is dynamic enough though to keep the pages turning. And isn't that what we like in our reads - something fun and fast-moving. My reading time is so limited these days that I really do not have time to slog through page after page of exposition or tangential details. It was fun to read and that is the point. However, the ending does lead directly into the next book where we assume Chase and Jonah will have one final go-around. This would be my only complaint as I dislike stories that cannot stand alone from others in the series. This book reads like the middle part of a story and I have no iread when the next one will be out. I expect it will be a year or so. I'll be there when it is ready.