On a Saturday evening in June, 1978, an altercation between Angie Sullivan and Cheryl Smith at the local roller skating rink quickly turned ugly. The high school seniors were quarreling over Kyle, Cheryl’s former boyfriend, who decided to go out with Angie. In fact, he had a ring in his pocket and was ready to take their romance to the next step. That night, eighteen-year-old Angie went missing.

The story picks up in the present day. Joshua Thornton is Hancock County’s prosecuting attorney battling it out in the courtroom against his cousin Albert Gordon who is a noted defense attorney. Later, when Albert didn’t show up at church on Sunday Joshua and his girlfriend Cameron Gates, a homicide detective for the Pennsylvania State Police, went to Albert’s home to see if he was okay. They found him dead due to an in-home accident.

Later when they were cleaning out Albert’s house and barn getting the property ready to sell, they found Cheryl Smith, the prime suspect in Angie‘s disappearance, in an abandoned freezer in Albert’s basement. More recently known as Cherry Pickens, Cheryl had spent many years in an adults only industry.

How her body ended up in this location prompted another look into the original unsolved case of many years ago. What Cameron and Joshua found were a trail of lies, deceit, murder and cover-up, as they searched for the truth.

Dead on Ice was written by Lauren Carr and was the first in the Lovers in Crime mystery series. Carr has written a novel with more twists and turns than I've seen in a while, but it all adds up to an interesting and unexpected reveal.

Many more people are involved in the original disappearance than first expected, and it seems everyone has their own secrets. Trying to unravel the truth from the twisted lies that have remained hidden for so long leads investigators on quite an interesting chase.

It will be interesting to see where Carr takes the couple next. I've had the pleasure of reading the Mac Faraday series and also the Joshua Thornton mysteries written by Carr, so I was excited to see the author decided to create a new series just for Joshua and Cameron. The two met on a previous case, and will work together in this new series.

Fans of the previous series and new readers should enjoy this series. There is a homey, cozy feel to the story with the inclusion of family members, cats, and dogs while it retains a complicated story line sure to please mystery fans.

I purchased this book through Amazon Kindle and highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys an intriguing mystery. You can purchase Dead on Ice either in the Kindle edition or in paperback through Amazon.com.