A body has been found. Naked, except for a lone pink mitten, it isn’t long before connections are made with a missing person report. Detectives Greevy and Daniels are dismayed at the age of the boy who has frozen to death in the snow.

Todd looks down on his body and the detectives assigned to his case. He’s more aggrieved at the large zit on his face that will now never clear, than the fact he is dead.

The local girl’s school is abuzz with the news that gallops through the halls. Who was it? Who did it? The private boy’s school too is all over it too, under the watchful eye of the dead boy they are now joking about in the way that only teenage boys can.

In this school however, there are other things not discussed. A secret that only they and Todd himself know. He watches their unravelling as Greevy and Daniels weave ever closer to the truth.

Told in two viewpoints, one in the ghost of the dead boy, and also by a girl called Georgia who has her own problems in high school.

This is a quick read, but slow burn to the reveal that implodes a family. Almost spare in the telling COLD is also cleverly executed into a murder mystery that under the curse of peer pressure, could happen anywhere, to anyone. This in itself is chilling.

The images of footprints across snow remained in my mind long after I’d finished reading. Like Todd himself, they are solitary, lonely and ultimately soon lost to the world as more snow begins to fall…

Author – Mariko Tamaki

Age – 14+

(2022, Macmillan, Murder, LGBTQ+, Mystery, School, Ghost, Two Viewpoints, Family, Investigation, Loss, Scandal, Peer Pressure, Gay, Friendship, Relationships, Guilt, Private Boy’s School, Detectives, Bullies, Conflict)