The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier (Commandant Martin Servaz #1)

Hello beautiful people! Welcome back to another review! For this review, I get into a chilling mystery The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier the first book in the Commandant Martin Servaz series. Set in a small town on the French side of the Pyrenees, the book focuses on a pattern of murders with more questions than the detectives can answer.

Main Characters:

• Commandant Martin Servaz: A dedicated officer Martin is disdained when he has to go to the scene of a death not of one of a human but a horse, soon seeing that he is sent there due to wealthy ties he assumes it’s a cut and dry situation, when evidence shows something much more sinister is afoot and then a body of a human shows up, Servaz must work to figure out who is doing this and why
• Irene Ziegler: An officer working closely with Servaz on the case, is much more empathetic and open than Servaz and helps keep him open when it comes to the case, the two start to create a bond as they work together
• Eric Lombard: A wealthy local businessman whose wealthy runs the town and gets him what he wants, due to the murdered horse being one of his prize animals the case gets taken to a more serious level than it would have which proves to be good
• Diane Berg: A psychologist working and studying at the Wargnier Institute a facility that holds extremely dangerous mental patients, although she is new she soon sees that something is going on in the facility and it is something to be concerned about
• Julian Hirtmann: Is being held at the Wargnier Institute for murdering his wife and her lover terribly but is also suspected of having killed many more people they just couldn’t prove it, so it’s strange when running DNA on the horse case that the DNA comes back to him because it shouldn’t and couldn’t be him

My Review

Going into The Frozen Dead by Bernard Miller I was looking forward to checking it out because it had good reviews and the plot really pulled me in. Sadly for myself, the book just did not hit for me and I felt really disconnected from the characters and the mystery in the book. I was debating even doing a review on it because I almost didn’t finish it but I do recognize that everyone likes different things and maybe what I didn’t enjoy about this book will actually hit home with someone else as to what they enjoy in books.

I landed on giving The Frozen Dead a 5/10 rating. There definitely were some things I enjoyed about the book which was why I kept reading and ultimately wanted to finish the book. The Frozen Dead follows Commandant Martian Servaz as he is sent to the scene of a crime at a mountain lift. Not entirely impressed by being there due to the victim he doesn’t understand why this is being held as a murder scene. The confusion comes from the fact that the victim is a horse and not a human. Once he learns why he is really there it just lands to frustrate him more. Eric Lombard local extremely wealthy businessman man is the owner of this horse and it’s one of his prize animals, so all resources are being put on it. Teaming up with Irene Zeigler they soon receive news that the DNA of Julian Hirtmann was found at the scene. The issue with this? It should be entirely impossible. After killing his wife and her lover, along with another 40 suspected women Hirtmann is locked up in the Wargnier Institute a high level security facility for the mentally unwell. The scene of the crime isn’t too far from the institute but it’s the dead of winter at the Pyrenees so the idea that he would have been able to do this is confusing. Furthermore when a human body shows up days later hung up in a similar horrific fashion to the horse the question becomes what is this for? Is it revenge on Eric Lombard and if so for what? If its Hirtmann what’s he doing this for? When the topic of teen suicides and a potential cult come into play Servaz is left with way more questions than he started with.

I think where The Frozen Dead really faltered for me was how full it was. In my opinion, there was too much but also not enough going on. I know that’s kind of confusing but often just felt like the book was focusing on things that weren’t really relevant to the mystery. I also felt like when it came to the mystery itself if maybe one or two things were taken out it would have been a bit easier for me to follow. There was just a lot going on and I really struggled to keep up with how all of these seemingly different things connected together. It starts off with the horse, then there is the connection to the inmate in the psychiatric facility, then another body shows up, then there’s this thing about teen suicides being brought up, and then there’s this kind of talk about a cult. I don’t know on the surface that may not seem like a lot but my little brain just could not handle it all.

I initially was really pulled in by the opening scene with the horse and was really curious to see how this would go and why someone would go to all this trouble to display the dead body of a horse this way. Along with the fact a horse is 3 times heavier than a human, the act was just something I had never seen in a book before. I think the intensity in the starting scene gets lost a bit and from there I just felt like the story sort of fell off. I also didn’t enjoy the parts with Diane Berg. I just didn’t see why they were there. It felt like a bit of filler to me and given that the book already had so much to it I don’t see why the filler was needed. We get these perspective parts from Diane where she is working at the facility and while I can see it was to try and give the reader an angle as to what’s going on there not much of it was really focused on Hirtmann. It did give us an idea as to what was going on at the facility and I am not sure I just didn’t feel like it was needed. The characters fell a bit flat for me as well. Servaz specifically is a very odd and shallow dude. He would often judge other people based solely on their looks and very much thought with his dick. It was just such a strange choice in my opinion to take this character because as a main character, you would think you would want characters to like him, but arguably maybe that’s not what Minier was going for at all.

Overall not a terrible read but I don’t think I am going to be checking out book number two. If you like complicated very intricate mysteries this one may be more up your alley. If you aren’t as character-driven as I am (have to like them to want to continue on) then this also may be a book you enjoy because none of the characters in this one are all that enjoyable. The visual setting in this book was amazing and I felt as though I could often picture the setting as clearly as it was being described. I think if the mystery had just played out a bit differently I might have found myself being more interested.

Has anyone else read The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier (Commandant Martin Servaz #1) what did you think? Will you be checking out further books in the series?

I hope you enjoyed this review, thank you for checking it out! Feel free to follow me on all my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I release a new review!