Saint-Martin-de-Comminges is a small town nestled in the French Pyrenees. The kind of place where winters are harsh and unforgiving and where nothing ever happens.
Until the winter morning when a group of workers discover the headless, flayed body of a horse, hanging suspended from the edge of a frozen cliff.
On the same day the gruesome discovery takes place, Diane Berg, a young psychiatrist starts her first job at a high-security asylum for the criminally insane, just a few miles away. She is baffled by the slightly unorthodox methods the asylum's director uses, and then greatly alarmed when she realizes that drugs are disappearing from within the fortified institution while someone seems to be slipping out at night.
Commandant Martin Servaz, a charismatic city cop from nearby Toulouse fond of quoting Latin, can't believe he has been called out over the death of an animal. But there's something disturbing about this crime that he can't ignore. Then DNA from one of the most notorious inmates of the asylum, a highly intelligent former prosecutor, accused of killing and raping several women, is found on the horse carcass . . . and a few days later the first human murder takes place. A dark story of madness and revenge seems to be unfolding.
Servaz and his colleague, the mysterious Irene Ziegler, must use all their skill to solve the terrifying mystery and best one of the most fiendish and clever opponents they could ever imagine.
"Bernard Minier's The Frozen Dead is a terrific thriller that will keep you up long past your bedtime. The French Pyrenees make a wonderfully atmospheric setting for this complex story of past crimes, madness and revenge. Servaz and Ziegler are a fascinating cop duo, and I hope to see more of them in the future. Excellent."
Peter Robinson, author of Children of the Revolution and Watching the Dark
"The pervasiveness of evil in this tense and disturbing novel makes for very compelling reading,with the suspense bordering on horror."
Booklist (starred review)
"Minier's assured debut adroitly combines a genuinely creepy series of crimes, a literally chilling atmosphere, and a dogged detective. Minier's execution equals his considerable cleverness."
