Take one former military police investigator and add an assassin who murders the man's former Iraqi interpreter, and you have the recipe for a thriller that will keep you glued to your chair until you reach the last page.
The killing of a former Iraqi interpreter sets his American sponsor on a search for the assassin, a search that threads its way through a torch job of the Iraqi’s house and the murder of the man’s wife, culminating in a race across open water on a snowmobile, a chase up an Interstate highway in a snow storm, and a shoot-out at the state capitol.
Wisconsin winters are murder. In Iced, it certainly is.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
John Wadkowski sat at the bar of The Library, his favorite watering place in downtown Jamestown, noodling with his Nokia. On the screen the word magistricide, meaning the killing of a teacher or master. He clicked “adopt,” committing himself to saving the word from the scrap heap of neglect. Wadkowski held the phone’s screen out to the bartender, Barb Larson, a redhead in a black mini-skirt and the tightest of rust sweaters.
“Where you gonna use that word?” she asked as she polished a pilsner glass.
“Dunno. Just find it interesting.”
The phone jumped with the University of Wisconsin fight song. Wadkowski clicked off the Save The Words website and the ring tone, read the caller ID, and put the phone to his ear.
“Wads,” came the voice of Howard Zigman, a friend with the Wappello County Sheriff’s Department, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news.”
“I’m sitting down, so go for it.”
“Your Iraqi buddy, Raheem Naseri?”
“What about him?”
“He’s dead.”
“My God, no.”
“Looks like suicide.”
“Where?”
“You’re not going to believe this. Back in the woods on your old farm....Wads?”
“I’ll come out.”
Wadkowski clipped off and slipped his cell in his pocket. He pointed to the bottle he had been nursing as he pushed off his stool. “Am I good for that?”
“Two bucks seventy, I guess. I don’t know why you drink that stuff. Nobody else does.”
“Muscle Milk. It’s the old dairyman in me, and, hey, bodybuilders love it.”
He shagged on outside where the cold of February slapped him, the afternoon shadows stretched long. At the curb, with still a half-hour on the parking meter, stood the one thing he had come away from his farm sale with free and clear, his Chevy Silverado dually with the biggest diesel engine the company made. He’d bought the truck when milk hit twenty dollars a hundredweight. It had tumbled to half that when the economy went to hell. And his debt – his adviser at the Farm Credit agency said sell out and go do something else.
He did and took an efficiency in town, but there was nothing else to do. The city police, the sheriff’s department, the state police all had hiring freezes, and he had, as a former military police investigator, the credentials for anything they might have. All he could get was assistant manager/night shift at the Main and Bypass Kwik Trip.
Wadkowski fired the engine. He drove out of town, west toward the farm and fields of bad memories. He flipped open his cell, pressed “contacts,” and scrolled down to Raheem Naseri – his home phone number. He pressed “send.” Shatha should be there, but no answer.
He scrolled to the nursery school where she worked and again pressed “send.” On the third ring: “Cradles to Crayons. Debbie here.”
“Debbie, this is Wads. Shatha there?”
“She didn’t come in today.”
Professional Reviews
A thrill-a-minute ride
Jerry Peterson’s new thriller, "Iced", is a thrill-a-minute ride down a slippery slope of suspense and shootouts. Engaging characters, spiffy dialogue, and non-stop action make this one a real winner.
– Michael A. Black, author of "Sleeping Dragons", a Mack Bolan Executioner novel, and "Chimes at Midnight"
Action at a hyperkinetic pace
Whenever I read Jerry Peterson’s books, I always finish the same way: I cast the book aside and resolve once again to work on boosting my own prose abilities to his level. Jerry Peterson has an easy way with characters and dialogue that can’t be taught; you either have it, or you don’t. Jerry has it in spades.
With "Iced", Jerry has turned his attentions to a new detective series, this one fashioned after the Japanese 'thumb novels' that were so popular a few years ago. Each chapter is only a couple of pages. The prose is sparse, clean, and effective. There are no unnecessary words. The action clips along at a hyperkinetic pace.
And the characters–oh man, the characters. Some writers can spend trilogies developing characters that don’t feel half as real as Peterson’s characters do in a few artfully crafted lines.
With John 'Wads' Wadkowski, Jerry has sculpted a modern-day hard-boiled detective from the Dairy State. This is no small feat. Wads, and the other characters in "Iced", leap off the page with unflinching verisimilitude and heart. The dialogue is lovely and rich, in that way that only really good mystery writers can do, energetic and lively. In short order, "Iced" gives us Elmore Leonard-equse banter, a nice car chase, a pistol duel in the Wisconsin Capitol Building, and a toilet fired out of a house like a cannonball. If you can’t get behind that, brother, I don’t know what to tell you.
"Iced" is the first in a new ongoing series for Jerry Peterson. If it continues on as strongly as his other series have, then count me a fan.
– Sean Patrick Little, author of “Longrider: To the North” and “The Bride Price”
An alcoholic, miserly attorney reluctantly defends a black man from a false resisting arrest charge. He then discovers damaging information against the cops and two cronies, and embarks on a battle to keep himself and his client alive.
