Detective Erika Breedza's 'The Girl In The Ice'

Andrea Douglas-Brown was a young woman who seemed to have everything going for her: wealth, beauty, and youth, yet this façade of her perfect life came crashing down with the discovery of her dead body frozen in the ice. This quarter, I have been reading Robert Bryndza’s novel The Girl in the Ice, and I have finished reading this book. Detective Erika Foster has been called to lead the investigation on the murder of this young socialite. While others look for obvious, black and white solutions, DCI Foster sees the complexity of this case. Erika questions what secrets Andrea had been hiding, while simultaneously battling to escape the demons of her own past. As Erika begins to dig deeper, clues are revealed that allude to something even more sinister than murder. While reading Robert Bryndza’s The Girl in the Ice, I was able to draw parallels between some of the characters in the novel and real life through music.

Superintendent Marsh is very dependent on her as this quote proves, “ ‘I know I can rely on you to reach a swift conviction on this’ “ (Bryndza 24). She follows her gut feeling and that feeling never leads her astray. She has been hailed as the future of the force. Despite all these plaudits, DCI Foster has her fair share of skeletons in her closet. A short time ago, her husband had died on a mission she led, and she felt culpable for this. Erika had been dropped by many of her friends after the death of her husband, because they too felt she was in some way culpable. Regardless of this, Erika has managed to jump head first into the Andrea Douglas-Brown murder investigation. I believe that the character of DCI Foster really embodies the song “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. “Do you think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die?” portrays how Erika thrived despite what was expected, after the tragedy. Erika grieved and then she forged