Deep Freeze by Michael C Grumley

I would like to thank Robert from Tor for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for fair and honest review

Publisher - Tor/Forge

Published - 8/1

Price - £21.38 hardback

The accident came quickly. With no warning. In the dead of night, a precipitous plunge into a freezing river trapped everyone inside the bus. It was then that Army veteran John Reiff's life came to an end. Extinguished in the sudden rush of frigid water.

There was no expectation of survival. None. Let alone waking up beneath blinding hospital lights. Struggling to move, or see, or even breathe. But the doctors assure him that everything is normal. That things will improve. And yet, he has a strange feeling that there's something they're not telling him.

As Reiff's mind and body gradually recover, he becomes certain that the doctors are lying to him. One-by-one, puzzle pieces are slowly falling into place, and he soon realizes that things are not at all what they seem. Critical information is being kept from him. Secrets. Supposedly for his own good. But who is doing this? Why? And the most important question: can he keep himself alive long enough to uncover the truth?

One of the curses of reviewing is you read a lot and if you read a lot you can work out certain plots or beats to a novel. A certain order of events leads to only a few possible outcomes. You learn the lingo and structures. That’s fine there are lots of ways to play musical notes after all and it is often the execution and how authors play with those themes and ideas where the fun is. Fun though was lacking when i read the new SF thriller Deep Freeze by Michael C Grumley which was perhaps more deja vu than like in a novel.

A mysterious man travels a bus there is an accident that while he rescues his passengers means he plunges to the depths of an icy river. This man known as John Reiff faces the end of everything. he then mysteriously wakes up. Haunted by visions of a fire, unable to move and see. Under the help of his physicians in particular Doctor Rachel Souza John makes a slow recovery but this hospital has secrets and very soon John and Rachel are in huge danger.

I was a bit disappointed that this novel very much does everything you expect it to do. Grumley is a proficient author but every character and scene will remind you of every book, tv show and movie where a mysterious lab does strange things to a patient. From secret meetings with the Boss; someone trying to find out the secret plan and getting caught and so on and so on. Its a very pedestrian plot that moves slowly without delivering anything particularly new. The villains are indeed villains. The good guys do their best and oh by the way John has skills he can use when necessary and indeed does so. You just never really care about the stock casting cast

Deep Freeze is a very short thriller than if you’ve not seen this before will be fine but it left very little of a lasting impression and I’m afraid there are better incarnations out there to find. The book has nothing new to say or contribute bar new technobabble. Not a book I can recommend sadly