“Why in the hell can’t people die when it’s warm and sunny? Winter in Indiana sucks.”

Mary Ann Miller’s series launch is set in February 2019. Jhonni Laurent had been deputy sheriff for 15 years. Elected sheriff by a narrow margin four years earlier, she faces a reelection battle with miffed deputy Mike Greene.

"Halfway through, this spectacular police procedural becomes more of a whydunit than a whodunit.... More than an excellent mystery, BONES UNDER THE ICE is a tale of one person’s perseverance."

Stephanie Gattison, Dylan Martin’s gal-pal, is a pregnant 18-year-old found frozen in Webster Park. “Stephanie and Dylan have been dating for a year now…. Finding a teenage girl frozen to death on the same day I gave up my daughter for adoption, thirty years apart, sucked. Big-time.” Laurent pushes emotion and speculation aside; she focuses on fact and is a true police professional. But that daughter has made contact and wants to meet her biological mother.

Philosophy tidbits season this debut: “Do you know that if your spouse dies, you’re called a widow or widower? If your parents die, you’re called an orphan. But there’s no word for a parent who loses a child.” Well, maybe devastated?

A conflict between the Martin and Tillman families is reminiscent of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. “The century-old feud was alive and well.” Laurent’s reelection contender, Deputy Greene, feeds info to a journalist wannabe. Greene’s “best friend is snake-in-the-grass Ralph Howard,” the editor and sole employee of the local rag The Crossing.

Laurent has two likely suspects: Dylan Martin and Theo Tillman, who “doesn’t have a lot of brain cells.” She balances tensions between feuding families, reelection and her first homicide investigation. She must make nice with those families and the village government employees. “Jim Cotter, the village attorney, was the king of the comb-over.” And conceit. He drives a flashy BMW and monster F-450. Is he trying to impress local farmers?

Laurent’s world appears to collapse around her. With “every bone in her 52-year-old body aching,” she learns that “we have another body to thaw.” Likable Bob Kane is found face down in a frozen lake. Straws and camels come to mind. She’s up to her elbows in alligators, albeit frozen ones.

Halfway through, this spectacular police procedural becomes more of a whydunit than a whodunit. Readers learn the perpetrator’s identity before Laurent does.

“Bones” tugged personal heartstrings: betrayal, bullying, abandonment. As with Laurent, adversity developed strength and integrity. More than an excellent mystery, BONES UNDER THE ICE is a tale of one person’s perseverance. Highly recommended!