Scan barcode
reesethedonut's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
hpuphd's review against another edition
2.0
The worst thing to say about this book is that its various elements fail to come together, and (second worst thing, I guess) that this disjointedness impedes the reader’s engagement. At times, the book seems a social satire, a suspense thriller, a Gothic romance, a whodunit with snow-bound travelers marooned in a house. The characters also lean toward the stereotypical. It is an early novel (1944) by Margaret Millar, who later wrote much better books, and last year or so I read three of them: The Iron Gates (1945), Beast in View (the Edgar Allan Poe award winner for best novel of 1955), and An Air That Kills (1957). Two stars mean “it was okay,” and that fits this excusable misfire by a talented novelist.
bev_reads_mysteries's review
3.0
Margaret Millar, well-known for her psychological mysteries, ventures into dark parody in Fire Will Freeze (1944). She gathers together a disparate group of ski enthusiasts traveling by snowbus and bound for a snow lodge in French Canada. Among the passengers is the moneyed but manless Isabel Seton who has an inordinate curiosity about her companions; a rough adventurer with a pistol in his pocket, a mad poet and his doting patroness, a willful young woman and her wayward father, a couple of sets of honeymooner (some more honeyed than others), and a burlesque artist with a knack for self-preservation. When their snowbus breaks down in a snow storm and their bus driver disappears, the passengers set out to find where he's gone and (hopefully) find shelter.
They seek refuge at Rudd House--home of the insane Miss Frances Rudd and Floraine, the companion who has been hired to care for her. Before they even reach the front door someone takes a potshot at them with a rifle, but they'll soon find out that this is the least of their worries. During the night, a dead cat will be left in the bed that Isabel shares with Gracie (the burlesque dancer), the cut up remains of the bus driver's uniform will be discovered, someone will freeze to death after fall from a balcony, someone else will be strangled, and another will be shot at close range. Isabel spends her time snooping in the dark, bantering with Charles Crawford (while trying to convince him to help get to the bottom of the mystery), and digging up clues that don't seem to mean anything. She gets more work done on the mystery when she teams up with Gracie (when she can get Gracie to come out from behind the barricaded bedroom door)
If there’s a mystery I want to keep it a mystery. The only thing to do in a place like this is to get inside a room with somebody you can trust, put the furniture in front of the door and be prepared to yell like hell....
And eventually they sort it out...in a way.
The mystery and psychological suspense may not be quite what Millar fans are used to, but the humor more than makes up for it. The dynamic duo of Isabel and Gracie are great fun--it's a treat to watch the street-wise Gracie teach the "old-maidish" Isabel a thing or two. The dark, lonely house--isolated and snow-bound--is played to the hilt with madmen and madwomen roaming the halls, screams in the night, and flickering candles everywhere. And nobody knows if the crazy lady is the killer or not. An enjoyable romp through murderous comedy.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
They seek refuge at Rudd House--home of the insane Miss Frances Rudd and Floraine, the companion who has been hired to care for her. Before they even reach the front door someone takes a potshot at them with a rifle, but they'll soon find out that this is the least of their worries. During the night, a dead cat will be left in the bed that Isabel shares with Gracie (the burlesque dancer), the cut up remains of the bus driver's uniform will be discovered, someone will freeze to death after fall from a balcony, someone else will be strangled, and another will be shot at close range. Isabel spends her time snooping in the dark, bantering with Charles Crawford (while trying to convince him to help get to the bottom of the mystery), and digging up clues that don't seem to mean anything. She gets more work done on the mystery when she teams up with Gracie (when she can get Gracie to come out from behind the barricaded bedroom door)
If there’s a mystery I want to keep it a mystery. The only thing to do in a place like this is to get inside a room with somebody you can trust, put the furniture in front of the door and be prepared to yell like hell....
And eventually they sort it out...in a way.
The mystery and psychological suspense may not be quite what Millar fans are used to, but the humor more than makes up for it. The dynamic duo of Isabel and Gracie are great fun--it's a treat to watch the street-wise Gracie teach the "old-maidish" Isabel a thing or two. The dark, lonely house--isolated and snow-bound--is played to the hilt with madmen and madwomen roaming the halls, screams in the night, and flickering candles everywhere. And nobody knows if the crazy lady is the killer or not. An enjoyable romp through murderous comedy.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
jakewritesbooks's review against another edition
3.0
Agatha Christie is considered the godmother of the cozy mystery, even though her books are tonally different than the cozies of today.
If you’re not familiar with the cozy mystery: quaint country side, quirky-but-endearing characters, random corpse, a place where murder rarely happens.
Nowadays, people dress up cozies with animals and recipes but when Christie was writing them, they had a tinge of the hardboiled in them. Not much; Christie will never be confused for Raymond Chandler. But just enough.
I don’t know if Margaret Millar’s Fire Will Freeze is a critique or satire of Christie’s work (which was popular at the time this was written) or maybe just her own response to it. It has the structure of a Christie mystery but it’s almost an anti-Christie. It’s a Christie book if all her characters were loathsome or annoying.
And that’s both a benefit and a drawback. I’m not a diehard Christie reader; some of her stuff is better than others and I appreciate her technical expertise. But what I often appreciate about Margaret Millar is, like Gillian Flynn today, how she’s able to make most of her characters so unsympathetic as to challenge the reader to care about them. It can make reading seem like a task for some but if you add a good plot to it, you have a fascinatingly readable book.
But the drawback is: the characters are dull in addition to being unsympathetic. And the mystery is fine, if imperfectly executed. Millar wrote this early in her career and I would have loved to seen a better version with her having a betters sense of her style. So all in all, it was a decent, subversive take on a familiar genre.
If you’re not familiar with the cozy mystery: quaint country side, quirky-but-endearing characters, random corpse, a place where murder rarely happens.
Nowadays, people dress up cozies with animals and recipes but when Christie was writing them, they had a tinge of the hardboiled in them. Not much; Christie will never be confused for Raymond Chandler. But just enough.
I don’t know if Margaret Millar’s Fire Will Freeze is a critique or satire of Christie’s work (which was popular at the time this was written) or maybe just her own response to it. It has the structure of a Christie mystery but it’s almost an anti-Christie. It’s a Christie book if all her characters were loathsome or annoying.
And that’s both a benefit and a drawback. I’m not a diehard Christie reader; some of her stuff is better than others and I appreciate her technical expertise. But what I often appreciate about Margaret Millar is, like Gillian Flynn today, how she’s able to make most of her characters so unsympathetic as to challenge the reader to care about them. It can make reading seem like a task for some but if you add a good plot to it, you have a fascinatingly readable book.
But the drawback is: the characters are dull in addition to being unsympathetic. And the mystery is fine, if imperfectly executed. Millar wrote this early in her career and I would have loved to seen a better version with her having a betters sense of her style. So all in all, it was a decent, subversive take on a familiar genre.
nadians's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
1.0
so boring
geriatricgretch's review
4.0
Just a delightful mystery and amazing for holding up as well as it does (not everything though - there's a scene that confuses consensual dominance with more assault overtone advancements that reads poorly). But largely a fun romp with an awesome feminist protagonist who is equal parts sassy, take charge and oblivious.
More...