Frost

A Novel

By: Sam Neumann

Narrated by: Addison Barnes

A small town, a wayward woman, and the murderer who won’t leave her alone.

Amy Frost is getting desperate. When her fledgling stand-up comedy career falls flat, adding one more failure to a long list, she is forced to move back in with her mother in her hometown in the Colorado mountains. All the things she thought she had left behind have again become her reality, and at 31 years old, Amy is terrified of winding up in Ballast, Colorado, forever.

But she is shaken out of her self-pity when Arnold Dooley, the man who murdered his wife and was later acquitted, walks into her place of work.

The town of Ballast falls into hysteria upon learning Dooley has taken up residence on its east end, and the residents begin scheming ways to remove him. But Arnold takes an interest in Amy and begins to offer her large sums of money for seemingly innocuous tasks. Skeptical and guarded, Amy spurns the proposition until it becomes too enticing to ignore, and soon finds herself thrust into a twisted world of depravity. The only way out is for Amy to uncover who actually killed Arnold’s wife - and why they’re after her.

Frost is a gripping psychological thriller that follows its female protagonist to the depths of the human psyche.

©2018 Sam Neumann (P)2019 Sam Neumann

Started good...

This book started great with a very unique and interesting premise (except that I recently listened to a mystery/suspense/thriller book also about a female who was/tried to become comedian) but then it really spiraled into some other story nearly unrelated to the first part of the book. It’s almost as if the author wanted very badly to use the premise and characters to any extent even though the rest of the book didn’t rely on premise anymore. First off, the “tasks” that she gets paid for only happen a few times and is not the driving force behind the conflict. I thought it would be her doing increasingly strange things for more and more money until it got out of control — but that is not what happens. Those exchanges are just how the two meet and know each other, so I was confused when nothing more happened with that storyline because it’s highlighted in the summary. That’s not a spoiler because you learn that early on. The story just went downhill and transformed into some other book altogether around 60% in. Strong start but very weak finish.