Hard Cold Winter

January 4, 2016
In Hamilton’s entertaining sequel to 2015’s Past Crimes, Elana Coll, the niece of the massive Will Willard, who was once the closest crony of former Army ranger Van Shaw’s late grandad in Seattle, has gone missing. Will wants Van to locate her. After all, Elana was close to Van when both were teenage thieves. Elana was heading for the cabin of her rich boyfriend, Kend Haymes, in the Olympic Forest when she fell off the grid. Van hikes to the remote cabin, where he discovers Kend and Elana shot to death. What was the motive? Van hooks up with former Afghanistan ranger and sniper Leonard Pak to learn why the young couple was killed. The mayhem that follows uncovers a Byzantine conspiracy generated by Russian gangsters and corrupt business tycoons. Hamilton renders the ample violent action effectively, but the best parts of the story are the vignettes he intersperses depicting Van and Elana’s criminal exploits when they were 17. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest Literary Agency.