![\"Cold](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/515OgbCtxEL.jpg?w=474&ssl=1\")
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Another mystery set in Minnesota.<\/strong> I keep buying these things. Was John Oakes\u2019s Cold Land<\/a><\/em> more satisfying to me than the previous suspects? Read on and learn\u2026<\/p>\n Jake Adler is a proud Texas Ranger. But he loves his wife, who left him, taking their two daughters, to go home to Minnesota. So Jake bit the bullet and drove north, lured by a job opening in Minnesota\u2019s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.<\/p>\n But this isn\u2019t the elite, professional BCA so many of us know from John Sandford\u2019s Prey <\/em>novels. The BCA in this novel is a moribund organization, crippled by budget cuts. Just a few agents wander its empty office building, and those are mostly low achievers dumped by other agencies. This shocks Jake, but what\u2019s worse is that he\u2019s told his application (despite his credentials) will have to go in the queue with others, and he must wait a couple weeks for a decision.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a secretary in the center of the wreck of BCA, one of those indispensable, competent women who keep organizations afloat. She tells Jake, confidentially, that if he goes along to help Jerry Unger, a veteran agent, with a petty fraud case, she thinks she can find a way to get him hired. So Jake accompanies Jerry on that not-very-promising assignment. Only they discover a body, which makes it a murder investigation, and Jerry and Jake are now competing with other cops to thwart what gradually is revealed to be a major hijacking plot. Along the way, Jake will make shocking personal discovery.<\/p>\n I guess the portrayal of Minnesota is only fair. In so many novels, we see the south through northern eyes, and get an endless vista of gap-toothed, inbred rednecks. In this book, we have Minnesota viewed through southern (Texan) eyes, and the prospect is no more appealing. Minnesota seems to be full of trailer trash too. In fact we see little of the state here besides blighted neighborhoods, and the weather\u2019s cold to boot.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t take these descriptions personally (though I wondered what Oakes has against Anoka, for which he reserves special derision. I always thought Anoka kind of a yuppy, arty place). I also found the plot a little hard to follow (which may be only a comment on me).<\/p>\n My real problem was with the tone of the thing. The book has a sort of a black humor voice, with serious crimes yoked to light dialogue. John Sandford finds a balance when he writes this kind of story, but Cold Land<\/em> didn\u2019t entirely gel for me. The various plot elements seemed to work against each other.<\/p>\n But author Oakes shows promise. I think he\u2019ll improve with time. Cautions for the usual stuff. Some themes seemed conservative to me, but a couple shots were taken at Christians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another mystery set in Minnesota. I keep buying these things. Was John Oakes\u2019s Cold Land more satisfying to me than the previous suspects? Read on and learn\u2026 Jake Adler is a proud Texas Ranger. But he loves his wife, who left him, taking their two daughters, to go home to Minnesota. So Jake bit the … Continue reading ‘Cold Land,’ by John Oakes<\/span>