Review of “One Icy Night” by W.A. Pepper

Score: 93/100 (9.3 out of 10)

One Icy Night by W.A. Pepper is a fascinating novel that tackles three mind-bending thought experiments:

• If your loved one were dying of an illness and the only cure that existed was locked in a lab, would it be moral or ethical to break in and steal it?
• If you were in a crisis and could only save either the older child or the baby, which would you save?
• If you were stuck in a (figurative) elevator with people, who would those people be? What secrets might you learn? What might you learn about yourself?
  
  

One Icy Night follows Ruth Olivia Kellum—usually just called “Rook”--a 20-year-old girl from Michigan who finds herself trapped in a sketchy town with some very sketchy people in the middle of the worst snow squall in decades.

The storm forces the town's colorful occupants indoors where they are stuck with their drinks, their cards, and their secrets. Among these occupants are Sheriff Carolton Roberts, Carl Riley, Dante, and Stalin House. Rook finds herself apprehended, detained, and “under arrest” for much of this book after an attempted theft, and she desperately schemes to retrieve her ID and escape. Along the way, she learns that the town is the focus of a string of serial murders and missing people including the sheriff's own mother. There's also a mystery about two children—an older brother and a baby—who were victims of a disaster with only one surviving the ordeal. This story and its implications serve as the source of tension between the sheriff and Riley.

Rook learns that she's not the only one who is in peril and captivity in the town, discovering that one of the older women there is being held in a home-prison, being deprived of insulin and, presumably, her other medications. Rook is mortified and takes this very personally since her own grandmother, her last surviving guardian (as her parents had died in a fire), had been dependent on her medications to survive. Rook makes it her personal mission—her raison d'entre--to rescue this woman once she is able to give Riley and the sheriff the slip.

There's also a lovable gay man who is aptly-named Stalin House (for some reason) in this. Furthermore, there's Dante, who devolves into a shotgun-wielding, drunken moron who keeps getting himself set on fire (for some reason). Gosh, this town is full of some... interesting people.

There's also Bekkahh, who we thought would become important, then disappears off the face of the earth for the rest of the book. Rook has some kind of boyfriend or lover who is in here once or twice, then likewise disappears into obscurity.

Stalin is probably the most level-headed of the characters that Rook meets, and the two seem to become good friends. Stalin is considerate, kind, and compassionate, ironic considering his first name. He is the only one who genuinely seems to care about Rook while she's stuck in the town. He also has one of the best comeback lines. Whenever a character tries to use the Lord's name in vain, Stalin interjects with “...was crucified, dead, and buried.”

The sheriff's mother is also a rather interesting character who is part of the town's greatest unsolved mystery. Could she be alive? Should we look forward to possibly finding her or should we be terrified?

There are so many characters who could be the villain. Could it be Riley? Could it be Dante? Could it be the sheriff? Could it be the woman in the shed? Or is the killer at large or someone off-screen?

How the villain was handled was both very interesting and a little rough. We don't want to spoil it. What we can say is that the surprise reveal felt really abrupt and forced, almost like the sudden turn of Hans in Frozen.

It does kinda explain why certain characters act so weird and irrationally throughout the book. For example, why would law enforcement leave Rook with someone who seems so clearly-crazy and so clearly-homicidal? Someone who—just an hour ago—was chasing her around with a weapon and trying to kidnap and/or kill her? Doesn't that seem like a tragedy waiting to happen?

Furthermore, why—if they were such good, law-abiding people--would they leave Rook (a violent criminal) alone to start one of their trucks? Why wouldn't they check her pockets for weapons (or the key)? That seems like common sense.

Remember, these are rhetorical questions, we know the answers to them.

So, by the end of the book, those types of things make a little more sense. The problem is, it's rough on the way there. It seems illogical. Most of the people in this book, besides maybe Stalin, Rook, and Rook's grandma (when she was alive), seem irrational, illogical, unreasonable, and maybe even un-human. You could argue that they all have traumatic pasts and are drunk for much of the book, but still... Take Dante for example. Dante is over here acting like a terminator, and it essentially gets laughed off. Riley is over here kidnapping a woman in plain sight of supposed law enforcement. A woman is very clearly dying from a lack of insulin, and everyone but Rook turns a blind eye to it. There's even a news anchor who loses his cool during the snow storm and goes on an expletive-filled rant about it on live TV. Yes, it's funny. Yes, it could happen, but how believable and how realistic is it?

Are these real people? Are they even human? Again, it makes a little more sense once you get to the wild, crazy conclusion, but things just don't seem to make enough sense on the way to the conclusion. It's almost like the answer to the math question is 5, but the path to that answer is a 22-step math equation. The more complicated the solution to a problem is, the less sense it's going to make to the average person.

Now, this book does a lot of things nicely. Once again, W.A. Pepper amazed us with his writing. There are some excellent passages in book like:

“It's like holding a tissue over a crack in a dam”

“Fight like you're wrestling the devil himself”

“Let the bridges you burn light the way”

“The laughs became sobs, which became gasps.”

“...my middle name is Olivia, not Graceful.”

“I grab the last bit of my beer and down it to chase this demon down my throat, but all the beer
does is make the throat-demon angry.”

“...never trust anyone who spells their name like they're trying to win at Scrabble.”

“...the base holds to the ground like a grudge.”

This is some of the best writing of the season! These passages include similes, sass, sarcasm, personification, and more.

Another thing we liked is when the drama picked up at the end of the book. The final chase and confrontation, presumably over a frozen lake, is perfectly cut with Rook's memories of her grandmother and her best advice: “Fight like you're wrestling the devil himself.”

There are also some very emotional moments, especially when discussing Rook's grandmother. So this book is an example of a work of fiction having some low-lows and high-highs, but it was an undeniably interesting read.

Check it out on Amazon!