From Goodreads: Dead on Ice is the first installment of Lauren Carr’s new series (Lovers in Crime) featuring Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Thornton and Pennsylvania State Police homicide detective Cameron Gates.

Spunky Cameron Gates is tasked with solving the murder of Cherry Pickens, a legendary star of pornographic films, whose body turns up in an abandoned freezer. The case has a personal connection to her lover, Joshua Thornton, because the freezer was located in his cousin’s basement. It doesn’t take long for their investigation to reveal that the risqué star’s roots were buried in their rural Ohio Valley community, something that Cherry had kept off her show business bio. She should have kept her hometown off her road map, too—because when this starlet came running home from the mob, it proved to be a fatal homecoming.

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Lauren Carr’s novels never cease to intrigue me.  I love the many mysterious aspects Carr incorporates, and trying to figure out who is behind the murders in all her novels is highly entertaining—Dead on Ice being no different.  Joshua Thornton and Cameron Gates are back in their very own series, and I’m excited to see them outside the Mac Farady novels, though I loved them in those novels, as well.  Cameron Gates is awesome, and her cat that looks like a skunk makes me overly happy.  I don’t know what it is about Carr and her animals, but I love every one she creates and adds to her stories, from Gates’ crazy cat, to Mac Faraday’s kleptomaniac dog, Gnarly; I’m in love.

The murder mystery surrounding Cherry Pickens really begins with the explosion of a house, a house a large group of people are working to clean out after the death of the owner, a lawyer related to Joshua Thornton.  And then, the finger pointing begins.  Carr sends us off on a highly enticing adventure as we attempt to figure out the truth behind not only Cherry Picken’s identity, but also her murder.  There are so many intriguing characters in this novel that the finger pointing really never ceases, not until Carr reveals the truth, which floored me.  This is a great murder mystery novel, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I think all adult readers will enjoy it as well.  Four stars.

Acorn Books has been extremely gracious in allowing me to read a copy of this novel, via Netgalley.