The Frozen People: An Ali Dawson Mystery
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By Elly Griffiths
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1 review
The instant Sunday Times bestseller
SOME MURDERS CAN’T BE SOLVED IN JUST ONE LIFETIME.
‘A five-star start to a dazzling new series . . . Smart, original and utterly masterful’ Janice Hallett
‘A pleasure from finish to start’ Anthony Horowitz
‘Fresh and exciting with both humour and thrills, Griffiths’ first book in her new series knocks it out of the park’ Shari Lapena
Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old, they’re frozen – or so their inside joke goes. Most people don’t know that they travel back in time to complete their research.
The latest assignment sees Ali venture back farther than they have dared before: to 1850s London in order to clear the name of Cain Templeton, the eccentric great-grandfather of MP Isaac Templeton. Rumour has it that Cain was part of a sinister group called The Collectors; to become a member, you had to kill a woman…
Fearing for her safety in the middle of a freezing Victorian winter, Ali finds herself stuck in time, unable to make her way back to her life, her beloved colleagues, and her son, Finn, who suddenly finds himself in legal trouble in the present day.
Could the two cases be connected?
Get ready for an original, transportive and characterful new crime novel from no. 1 bestselling author Elly Griffiths. Perfect for those missing the Dr Ruth Galloway series and for any crime and historical fiction fans.
A Sunday Times bestseller w/c 17/02/2025
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Elly Griffiths is one of my favourite authors and when she closed her Ruth Galloway series last year I really hoped she’d come up with a new series that would be just as good. With this I think she has, even though when I read the plot summary I wasn’t sure I'd enjoy it, because the whole idea behind it sounded so bonkers! Nonetheless, I downloaded this as soon as it became available, and I was caught up in the story from chapter one.
Ali Dawson is a police detective working as part of a cold case team based in London. The cases they deal with are so old they could, indeed, be described as frozen, but what isn’t public knowledge is that the team is working on a secret project to develop time travel. (I told you it was bonkers!)
Ali’s son, Finn, is a special adviser to cabinet minister, Isaac Templeton, who is writing his family history. He approaches Ali’s team asking them to help him clear the name of one of his Victorian ancestors, Cain Templeton, who had been a well-known patron of the arts. However, it is also believed that Cain had belonged to a sinister group known as The Collectors, whose initiation rite had required each member to kill a woman.
In order to investigate, Ali agrees to travel back to 1850 where she gets enmeshed in a mystery she wasn’t expecting. More alarmingly, she then can’t get back to the present day, where Finn has become a suspect in a murder investigation.
My verdict
Elly Griffiths isn’t just a great storyteller, she makes her characters seem completely alive. In this new series, Ali is a wonderful protagonist and, in fact, all the characters are varied and interesting, across both the timelines of the story. I found I couldn’t put this book down because I was desperate to find out what happened next.
Another stand-out feature as far as I’m concerned, was the attention to detail. From the clothes Ali had to wear in order to blend in with life in Victorian London, to her struggles to get by without the modern technology she has become so used to. Everything was so vivid and believable.
The pace kept me reading and I couldn’t wait to find out how the story would unfold. Of course it’s a crazy plot, but that doesn’t matter because the whole premise is so imaginative. After all, most people would like to time travel to see how peopled really lived in the past and to trace their ancestors. I didn’t guess the killer, it came as complete surprise. I will definitely be looking out for the next one in this series and this definitely earns 5 Stars from me.
Review by: Norfolk Gal, Oundle Crime
