"exhilarating police procedural"

It has been a strange week in Philadelphia if you ask the CSU investigative team. While much of the unit works an arson that took six lives, investigator Tommy Parker and rookie technician Madison Cross work a carved up corpse found in several trash bags by the garbage collectors; the detective in charge "Cold Case" Fenton assumes a neighbor with a record of violence killed the victim, but Madison thinks otherwise. From that case they work the mummy whose organs were frozen. Then there is the twenty two year old wannabe gangbanger Luis Castillo tossed from a speeding car.

Evidence point to the Castillo case and another gang member execution are tied to a shootout in rural Lawson; so Detective Ted Johnson and Cross go there to meet with Police Chief Boone. Though a bit irritated with Boone's initial reaction to a technician not an investigator, Madison and the chief are attracted to one another, but first must come the investigation as well as the garbage case she quietly works as Fenton lives up to his nickname using his connection to his cousin the commissioner to avoid field investigation.

Nepotism seems the norm as Cold Case Fenton has an uncle for the commissioner and CSU Cross works for her uncle who along with her aunt raised her. Putting family trees aside, this is an exhilarating police procedural that focuses on the work of a CSU team having a busy week with several odd corpses requiring investigation. The story line focuses on Madison, but provides enough support from the support players such as Parker mentoring her to make for a fine rounded crime tale. Fans of the CSI shows will appreciate FREEZER BURN as Madison and the CSU professionals along with Philadelphia's finest investigate several questionable deaths.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted June 7, 2008

Summary

From the author of Blood Poison comes a new forensics case in the C.S.U. Investigations.

The Crime Scene Unit knows that even the most cold-blooded killers leave clues.

A bag full of body parts. A man thrown from a car. A shriveled corpse. A gangster, tortured and killed. Besides the fact that the C.S.U. found them on the same day, it seems the cases have nothing in common. But, when interwoven, they point to a plot more elaborate than anything C.S.U. newbie Madison Cross has seen. To investigate, she'll have to descend into Philly's underworld of gang brutality, then rise to the highest echelon of organized crime. But both the gang and the killer hope to see her eliminated, once and for all.