February 9th, 2025
Home | Log in!

On Top Shelf
Terri ReedTerri Reed
Fresh Pick
THE LIBRARIANS OF LISBON
THE LIBRARIANS OF LISBON

New Books This Week

Reader Games

Reviewer Application

❤ Valentine Giveaways ❤


Love, Secrets, and Second Chances—February’s Must-Read Books Await!

Slideshow image


Since your web browser does not support JavaScript, here is a non-JavaScript version of the image slideshow:

slideshow image
A Stray Pup, A Second Chance, and a Killer on the Loose�Wagtail�s About to Get Wild!


slideshow image
A Hacker, an Undercover Mission, and a Love Worth Fighting For.


slideshow image
A Duke by any other name would smell as� dastardly?
Roguish?
Rakish?
� delightful?


slideshow image
Shaken, Stirred, and Unexpectedly in Love�Can They Mix Business with Pleasure?


slideshow image
As London's high society watches their every move, can these two brilliant minds find the formula for true love?


slideshow image
Chocolate, Second Chances, and a Love Too Sweet to Let Go.


Blue Deer Thaw

Blue Deer Thaw, July 2024
Jules Clement #4
by Jamie Harrison

Counterpoint
328 pages
ISBN: 1640093001
EAN: 9781640093003
Kindle: B0CKB35PW9
Paperback / e-Book / audiobook
Add to Wish List


Purchase



"If the Montana winter doesn't kill you, enjoy a stay in Blue Deer"

Fresh Fiction Review

Blue Deer Thaw
Jamie Harrison

Reviewed by Clare O'Beara
Posted January 31, 2025

Small Town | Mystery

Blue Deer, Montana, and another visit to the series featuring Sheriff Jules Clement of Absaroka County. Winter has lain heavy on the town and a brief BLUE DEER THAW is followed by more snow. There'll be another thaw, but not soon enough to save a local lady from freezing to death in the snow between her isolated home and a bar. She had been drinking, so the cold was more dangerous, but how come her home was locked and her husband didn’t hear her knocking as he slept? Jules is suspicious that Leon Baden, who could be described as a mean-tempered man, deliberately left his wife Anne out in the cold.

 

Jules has distractions, including topping up his official income by using his days off to help with cataloguing the esoteric art collection at the Sacajawea Hotel. While his archaeologist training helps, he’s not an expert in fine art. The hotel renovation will ideally be completed by the time his dear friends, Alice Wahlgren and Peter Johansen, get married at the venue in spring. Meanwhile, all the small portable objects and paintings with artistic worth seem irresistible to some.

 

Deputy Caroline Fair, who arrived in the previous book, and the rest of the crew, Jonathan, Harvey, Grace and Ed, are fast becoming friends with regular readers of the series. The hectic parade of cases large and small – from loose livestock to travellers killed by avalanches or icy rivers – keeps Jules and staff too busy to concentrate on any one issue.

 

I had an odd experience while reading. I was two-thirds of the way through and thought I could finish the book that day. Then I thought, no, I don’t want to, because it’s the last book. I’ll miss everyone. I left it and came back the next day, but by then, I’d developed a panic that with Jules considering leaving the sheriff’s office and gaining a romantic life, final events might go badly for him and others. I did not want that to happen. Normally, I leave characters on the page, but these had started to feel very real to me through the four books.

 

The good news is, after finishing the story I discovered that an extra book was written in 2024, The River View. So we can visit Absaroka County another time without re-reading. Jamie Harrison deserves top marks for creating her heavy-drinking, overworked, winter-tired cast, placed in a landscape they understand that seems too bitter for outsiders to last. BLUE DEER THAW is a detailed, woven crime story, with humour, joy, and sadness, for mature readers.

Learn more about Blue Deer Thaw

SUMMARY

Alcohol and art, love and death. When a woman freezes to death in a snowdrift, Jules follows the mystery back to the newly renovated Sacajawea Hotel, where he’s cataloging antiquities for the owner. What seems like a random act of misfortune plays out as a more complex story of family greed and revenge; for Jules, it will mean both love and tragedy. The reluctant sheriff will have to face the arctic winter in his search for clues to multiple murders, and the town of Blue Deer will never be the same.

Blue Deer Thaw continues the exploits of Sheriff Jules Clement in this exciting installment of the critically acclaimed mystery series.


What do you think about this review?

Comments

No comments posted.

Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!

 

 

 

© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net  all rights reserved Privacy Policy