The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths
Since my vacation in July, I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump. I made it most of the way through “Who Gets in and Why” by Jeffrey Selingo and felt very proud of myself, but this was drudgery reading, not entertainment. I tried a number of other books, but nothing was really speaking to me. Even audiobooks. I did finally finish “Flashlight” and greatly appreciated it, but it was a bit of a slog at times. I showed up for two of our podcast recordings feeling light on content. The best way out of a slump is plot, so I brought home “The Frozen People” by Elly Griffiths, whom I know I can count on for a good mystery.
(I loved “The Crossing Places,” “The Stranger Diaries,” and “The Postscript Murders,” plus she’s a couple dozen books into her career so you can trust she knows what she’s doing. Okay, full disclosure, I once took a road trip through the midwest with her when I worked at my old publishing company. Originally Elly was meant to take the trip with her longtime marketing manager, who had planned the trip, but then my colleague got let go in another stupid round of layoffs. Then my boss was going to do the trip, but she unexpectedly died (pausing to let that sink in) and so I was next in line. I was a mess. Both over losing my boss/mentor and because I was trying to do two extra jobs on top of the one I had originally been doing. Elly was lovely. We had a real bonding moment over McDonald’s milkshakes. I haven’t kept in touch with Elly, but I appreciate her so much and yes, maybe I’m predisposed to like her books, but they’re all bestsellers in the UK, so I don’t think I’m wrong to like them.)
“The Frozen People” has some similarities to Elly’s Ruth Galloway series because both are about solving cold cases, but in the previous series (which started with The Crossing Places) Ruth Galloway was an archeologist who helped identify old bones and in the new series, Ali Dawson is part of a secret unit that can travel back in time to collect evidence on cold cases. Listen, I have customers who, when I say “time travel”, hold up their hands and say, “I don’t do fantasy.” Understood. But I actually think time travel is the most benign form of science fiction. Everything else is basically the same — in terms of world building, we’re still on planet Earth and everything is recognizable, except for this one element. I convinced a lot of people to read “The Ministry of Time” by telling them that there’s time travel but you as the reader don’t really experience it. Some characters are brought from the past to the present, so all the action is happening in the now. With “The Frozen People,” we do travel back to Victorian England — but isn’t this cool? Isn’t this the great thing about books? We can snap our fingers and be in 1850!
Griffiths artfully sprinkles her research into the story. When Ali Dawson must travel to 1850 to investigate the murders of a high profile politician’s ancestor (the reasoning here does feel a bit flimsy but is mostly explained away with “but time travel is so awesome! Let’s just see if we can do this! We’ve never gone back this far before!” and then later some more details come out that make it all seem a bit more plausible, but really you just have to roll with it), she needs to get outfitted with the proper clothing in order to fit in. And once she arrives, she has to figure out how to navigate the boarding house she ends up in and getting around town, etc — so we learn a lot about clothing and food and chamber pots. Being forced into this stressful situation also allows Ali to show off her character — she’s of the people, a bootstrapper, smart and tough and capable and genuinely kind to all walks of life.
Finally, it’s a good story working on multiple levels, leaving the reader satisfied in the end. Ali is only supposed to stay in 1850 for one hour, but her retrieval gets botched and now she’s stuck. Will she get back to her own timeline and to her beloved son, Finn? What is the evidence she has gathered pointing to? When she arrives, a woman has been murdered — is she meant to solve that case? Why has she been sent back to 1850? What’s the real story with this powerful politician who orchestrated the trip? A few cliffhangers up the stakes and make everything more personal for Ali (but I don’t want to give away too much). It’s worth reading to find out.