If, like me, you’ve been living through a major heatwave lately, you might feel slightly envious of Northern hemisphere folks, currently up to their knees in snow. I’ll tell you right now that reading Cold Truth – the new novel by Ashley Kalagian Blunt, out now from Ultimo Press – will cure you of that envy quick smart.
The story follows Harlow Close, a Winnipeg influencer not deterred in the slightest by the region’s sub-zero temperatures and cold snaps. Her father mysteriously disappears from his home one night, and Harlow enlists the assistance of her reluctant (and far less Insta-famous) sister to aid in the search, seeing as the police are turning up nothing.
I sat down to read a few chapters of Cold Truth before bed, and ended up finishing the whole thing in one sitting. It’s an intriguing mystery, with incredibly evocative place writing, a combination that’s hard to beat. There are also scores of red herrings to keep you guessing (Jasper, the disgruntled neighbour; Hudson, Harlow’s aggrieved ex-boyfriend; Gareth, the creepy storage facility employee; Donna, the overly-enthusiastic lady from the missing man’s curling team… to name a few!). My favourite character was, of course, Caesar the Pomeranian, and I can happily confirm that he comes to no harm over the course of Cold Truth.
My only real quibble with Cold Truth was that some of the technology sounded a bit far-fetched – not that it doesn’t exist (it absolutely does), but that these characters would have the skills to use it in this way and execute its functions so perfectly without being detected. Set aside your skepticism, though, and sink into this read-it-past-your-bedtime story set in one of the coldest cities on Earth.
Read Cold Truth on audiobook via Libro.fm here. (affiliate link)
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