Highest Praise for Gregg Olsen
HEART OF ICE
“Gregg Olsen will scare you—and you’ll love every moment of it.”
—Lee Child
A COLD DARK PLACE
“A great thriller that grabs you by the throat and takes you into the dark, scary places of the heart and soul.”
—Kay Hooper
“Gregg Olsen is one of the best. You’ll sleep with the lights on after reading Gregg Olsen’s dark, atmospheric, page-turning suspense…if you can sleep at all.
—Allison Brennan
“A stunning thriller—a brutally dark story with a compelling, intricate plot.”
—Alex Kava
“A page-turner…a work of dark, gripping suspense.”
—Anne Frasier
“This stunning thriller is the love child of Thomas Harris and Laura Lippman, with all the thrills and the sheer glued-to-the-page artistry of both.”
—Ken Bruen
“Olsen keeps the tension taut and pages turning.”
—Publishers Weekly
A WICKED SNOW
“Real narrative drive, a great setup, a gruesome crime, fine characters.”
—Lee Child
“A taut thriller.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Wickedly clever! Gregg Olsen delivers a finely crafted, genuinely twisted tale of one mother’s capacity for murder and one daughter’s search for the truth.”
—Lisa Gardner
“A tightly plotted, gripping police procedural. Gregg Olsen’s riveting debut is an outstanding addition to the suspense genre.”
—Allison Brennan
“An irresistible page-turner. A Wicked Snow grabs you on page one and never lets go until the heart-pounding finale.”
—Kevin O’Brien
“Complex mystery, crackling authenticity…lurid, carefully distributed details…will keep fans of crime fiction hooked.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A top-notch thriller. Unpredictable plot twists, realistic characterization, and an authentic portrayal of police procedure make it a powerhouse of a book.”
—Donna Anders
“Vivid, powerful, action-packed…a terrific, tense thriller that grips the reader.”
—Midwest Book Review
“A Wicked Snow keeps the reader guessing and gulping from the very first page…a very nifty brainteaser of a thriller.”
—Jay Bonansinga
“Tight plotting drives the story in an almost hypnotic way. I literally could not stop reading. Nerve-racking suspense and a wonderful climax make this debut a winner.”
—Crimespree magazine
“Wonderful…Olsen has drawn on his extensive true-crime past to create characters that are all too believable, and has put them into a situation that is compelling and horrifyingly real. This one will keep you riveted and guessing, right to the end.”
—Seattle Mystery Bookshop
“Olsen writes a real grabber of a book. If you’re smart, you’ll grab this one!”
—Linda Lael Miller
“A compelling story, tightly woven, that kept me riveted to the final page.”
—Susan R. Sloan
“A Wicked Snow’s plot—about a CSI investigator who’s repressed a horrific crime from her childhood until it comes back to haunt her—moves at a satisfyingly fast clip.”
—Seattle Times
ALSO BY GREGG OLSEN
THRILLERS
Just Try to Stop Me*Now That She’s Gone*The Girl in the Woods*Fear Collector*Closer Than Blood*The Bone Box (e-novella)*Victim Six* A Cold Dark Place* A Wicked Snow* Shocking True Story The Sound of Rain
YOUNG ADULT FICTION
The Girl on the Run (Run)EnvyBetrayal
NONFICTION
A Twisted FaithThe Deep DarkIf Loving You Is WrongAbandoned PrayersBitter AlmondsMockingbird (Cruel Deception)Starvation HeightsBitch on Wheels (Black Widow)
WITH REBECCA MORRIS
A Killing in Amish CountryIf I Can’t Have YouBodies of EvidenceOverkill
*Available from Kensington Publishing Corp.
HEART OF ICE
GREGG OLSEN
PINNACLE BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
For Derek,
who loves to read
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
850 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Copyright © 2009 Gregg Olsen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
PINNACLE BOOKS and the Pinnacle logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3968-5
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3968-X
First printing: March 2009
Second printing (premium format): April 2017
Electronic edition: March 2009
eISBN-13: 978-0-7860-2176-8
eISBN-10: 0-7860-2175-6
Contents
Prologue
PART ONE Mandy
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen