Turn to Stone by Brian Freeman

Turn to Stone is a novella by Brian Freeman, but also featuring detective Jonathan Stride.  I found Brian Freeman at my local library... somewhere on the walk between Linda Fairstein and Stephen Frey, and decided to pick up Immoral.  I think part of the reason I became so enamored of his writing was the joy of discovery.  I had never heard of him before; never talked to anyone who read him and it all seemed very new.  The quality of the writing was (to my mind) exceptional and I've recommended him consistently since.


His novels are, for the most part, set in Northern Michigan, and usually in the winter.  He has a wonderful way of writing that sets the tone of the cold and desolate feeling of winter in the north.  Since that time I've avidly followed Mr. Freeman, and eagerly await his novels.  That being said, I have some difficulty finding them in my local bookstores.  I have yet to see The Cold Nowhere and have not found Season of Fear either.  So I turned to ebooks for short stories, and Turn to Stone was good to fill the time while waiting for his next one.  (I should mention I also read Spitting Devil, a kindle short story by Brian Freeman.  It was fine too... good to pass the time, and a clever premise about a woman who may be living with a serial killer). 


I like Jonathan Stride as a protagonist.  His past isn't unusually strange or tortured... he's just a widower trying to move on after his wife died of cancer, and throwing himself into his work initially as a way to deal with it.


I'd probably say this novella didn't have the same level of depth as his novels (and I'm not sure I would expect that), but was still very effective.  Good at evoking the place, the horror and the sense of cold and isolation.  He's heavy on the descriptive words, and a little heavy handed at working in the title as a bit of a twist, but it all works very well together.  Like Mr. Freeman's other books, he has a way of explaining evil while still making it suspenseful, unknowable and terrifying.


I really liked Stride's interaction with his uncle.  We haven't seen much of his family before and it was nice to see something of that relationship.  Most exciting to me though was the possibility that Stride may be thinking about getting back together with Serena again.  I really liked her as a character... and while I liked her better in Vegas, Stride needs his wintry home.  I still like the idea of their relationship, even though I can't really see how it can work.  Thinking of it, I guess I like reading stories featuring Serena.  I don't need her to be with Stride, but I like the idea Mr. Freeman may be at least re-connecting with her, which may lead to having her own stand-alone story.


I find Stride's attachment to Michigan very effective.  He's in the cold, understands it, and loves it without needing to say so.  His love for the winter and the Great Lakes wouldn't be able to be summed up as "Stride likes winter".  I'm not even sure that he'd describe himself that way.  But the winter there is a part of him, in a way that makes him unable to survive in Las Vegas or, perhaps, anywhere else in the world.  That sense of belonging to his city or state rings true in a very natural way, that's hard to put a finger on, but is an indelible characteristic of those who live in places with harsh climates.   


I think Maggie Bei doesn't feel that she's a part of the community in the same way... perhaps because she seems to be denying the existence of winter or defying the effect of the cold on her.  This novel sees Stride very lightly working through some of the issues between he and Maggie, and I think underlying their relationship is that Stride is a part of Michigan and a part of the winter, and though he'd be the first to tell Maggie that she's not an outsider, he has an implicit recognition that this is his home, his community and he can't leave.  I think he'd have a subconscious fear that Maggie would, at some point, want him to leave his home. 


That's what I like so much about Mr. Freeman's writing.  In the course of the novella, in the space of perhaps one verbal exchange and a paragraph of internal (superficial) thought, I can read in to Jonathan Stride motivations he (as a character) may not even be able to recognize in himself.  It's very effective and I can't think of many authors who can create characters with such depth and realism.  I'd strongly recommend Mr. Freeman's novels for those interested in police procedural mystery with a strong element of suspense.