Cold as Ice (Cold Justice: The Negotiators 5) by Toni Anderson-Review Tour

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date September 23, 2021.

When Darby O’Roarke wakes up in a strange house with a dead man – with no memory of what happened – she knows who she has to call: FBI Supervisory Special Agent Eban Winters…the man she fell for, and who rejected her, last summer.

A negotiator isn’t supposed to get involved with kidnap victims, and Eban has been trying to avoid the temptation that is Darby O’Roarke ever since they met. One frantic phone call has him racing to Alaska to uncover the truth, but he faces stubborn opposition from the local police, and a growing media frenzy.

Getting Darby released from jail and keeping her safe is his first priority. When another woman is brutally slain, evidence emerges that suggests Darby is being framed, and that the culprit is a vicious serial killer who has eluded the FBI for more than a decade…and, now, the killer has Darby in their sights

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REVIEW: COLD AS ICE is the fifth instalment in Toni Anderson’s contemporary, adult COLD JUSTICE: THE NEGOTIATORS erotic, romantic suspense series. This is thirty-four year old, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Eban Winters, and twenty-six year old PhD student Darby O’Roarke’s story line. COLD AS ICE can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story line is revealed where necessary. Darby and Eban’s story begins in book two Colder Than Sin.

Told from dual third person perspectives (Darby and Eban) and first person (killer) COLD AS ICE follows in the wake of the murder Darby’s PhD mentor Martin Carstairs, a murder of which our heroine has been unjustly accused. Desperate for help, Darby ‘accidentally’ contacts FBI Supervisory Special Agent Eban Winters, the man who helped Darby months before following her kidnapping and torture in Nabat Island in the Flores Sea, Indonesia but a second victim all but releases Darby as the prime suspect, a release many refuse to acknowledge or accept. With the arrival of Eban Winters, Darby finds herself under the protection of the man with whom she will fall in love but a man who refused her advances months before. What ensues is the building romance and relationship between Eban and Darby, as the Eban, and the local Fairbanks, Alaska police department hunt for a killer.

Eban Winter’s attraction to Darby has never waned in the months since her rescue from Nabat Island, Indonesia but Eban refused to act on his attraction knowing Darby had suffered enough at the hands of her kidnappers and abusers. Desperate to prove Darby is innocent of the crime of murder, Eban sees red when the local PD begin to circle like vultures on our story line heroine. Darby O’Rourke doesn’t remember much about the night in question only that she woke to a dead body in someone else’s house but when the killer begins targeting a number of people in our heroine’s life, Eban knows that the killings are personal and directed at the woman he loves.

The relationship between Eban and Darby is one of immediate attraction but months will pass before Eban allows himself any kind of personal interaction in the face of the horrific atrocities Darby suffered at the hands of someone else. With very few people behind Darby as a means of help or support, Eban finds himself Darby’s first line of defense when it comes to proving herself innocent of the crimes. The $ex scenes are intimate, passionate and intense without eh use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.

There is a large ensemble cast of colorful secondary and supporting characters including several victims of a serial killer who is getting desperate. We are introduced to several fellow PhD students at University of Alaska Fairbanks, as well as local therapist Kim Gleeson, his receptionist Corinne Brown, police detective Signy Torgeson, attorney Elliot Byrne, as well as FBI Negotiator Quentin Savage, and business woman Haley Cramer (Colder Than Sin 2). There may be something developing between Elliot Byrne and Signy Torgeson.

COLD AS ICE is a story of obsession, vengeance, and murder; secrets and lies; relationships and love. The premise is intriguing and haunting; the romance is seductive and steamy; the characters are dynamic, charismatic and resilient.

Reading Order and Previous Reviews
Cold and Deadly
Colder Than Sin
Cold Wicked Lies
Cold Cruel Kiss

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

Toni Anderson is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, RITA® finalist, science nerd, professional tourist, dog lover, gardener, mom. Originally from a small town in England, Toni studied Marine Biology at University of Liverpool (B.Sc.) and University of St. Andrews (Ph.D.) with the intention she’d never be far from the ocean. Well, that plan backfired and she ended up in the Canadian prairies with her biology professor husband, two kids, a rescue dog, and a laid-back leopard gecko.

Toni started writing while pregnant with her first child and never stopped. Her greatest achievements are mastering the Tokyo subway, climbing Ben Lomond, snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, and surviving fourteen Winnipeg winters (fingers crossed). She loves to travel for research purposes and was lucky enough to visit the Strategic Information and Operations Center inside FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. in 2016, and she also got to shove another car off the road during pursuit training at the Writer’s Police Academy in Wisconsin. Watch out world!

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