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Sometimes you start a book and know immediately that you love it, or that you hate it. Those books are easy. The hardest books are the ones that move along quite nicely, with nothing to dislike but with which you can't quite connect. "Bone Dust White" was one of those books for me.

I read to past the halfway mark, carried forward by the fact that the writing works and I like Macy Greeley, the heavily pregnant detective leading the murder investigation. The pace was slow and the story meandered a bit but there was nothing bad about the book.

In the end I stopped a little over halfway through when I realised:

• I wasn't curious about who had done what to whom because I'd never become engaged in solving a puzzle.
• I found Garrett, the main male character, believable but irritating. He's a nice enough guy in an effort-free kind of way but he's cast himself in a victim/martyr role and he bores me.
• The two women Garett is letting use him are both toxic and made me feel I was in a crime series twist of The Bold and the Beautiful.
• Grace, the young female victim, is so helpless and soft that I want to slap her. I know, I should have more empathy than that, but I have no idea how this girl has survived to be eighteen.

I may try a different series by Karin Salvalaggio but I need a different mix of characters.

This is meandering a bit. Lot's of hints and foreboding and angst; some interesting character building but nothing much by way of plot development. I'm a third of the way in and I feel like I've only just started. This feels like drifting down a tame, shallow river in a canoe: it might be fun on a sunny day but feels odd in a tale that starts with murder in the snow. 

"Bone Dust White" is one of my Thirty Firsts Reading Challenge books. All I knew about it was that it kicks off the Macey and Greeley Montana detective duo series that has had good press and that the audiobook was read by Amy McFadden, one of my favourite narrators.

I nearly didn't make it beyond the first chapter. The set up was dramatic - a murder in the snow - a witness - an unexpected revelation - all great stuff. EXCEPT that the main character was just useless. Completely overwhelmed by circumstances and taking a series of stupid decisions. The descriptions of her actions and responses were probably meant to build empathy and drama but just left me with a - get yourself together and get on with it - reaction that was... unhelpful. The uncharitable part of me was starting to give out Darwin Awards and wonder if maybe some people deserved to die in the snow.

In chapter two I met Macey and Greely and things got better. Mostly because of the pregnant and indomitable Macey. Greely plays hockey for fun so the jury's still out. I also found out - too late for me to be anything except embarrassed at my own lack of charity - that our clueless woman from chapter one had just turned eighteen. Why was that detail left out? Sure, it'll be obvious in the movie but how was I supposed to know?

Anyway, I'm back with the book and I'm hoping I've found something good.

Bone White has done something that few thrillers have done to me in years....left me white knuckled. With a chilling atmosphere that has one Hell of a lot more going for it than just the temperature in the aptly named town of Dread's Hand, Alaska.

With a deft hand, Malfi weaves a contemporary thriller with primal fear, paying homage, in my humble opinion, to Algernon Blackwood and his classic The Wendigo. And raising the bar, not to mention the hairs on the back of my neck in the process.

Highly recommended.