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Summary: Amusing first novel.
Review: "The Ice Harvest" by Scott Phillips is an interesting first novel.It is light entertainment...a noirish dark mystery/comedy. Filled with irony, it is set on Christmas eve in Wichita in 1979. The major character is Charlie Arglist, a ill-fated lawyer for the owner of some local strip clubs. He has a big scam going, skimming off the top. But then, everyone is scamming everyone...and the need to eliminate some participants along the way seems only natural. Charlie gets in and out of many jams that night as he attempts to make his getaway. How he is rewarded at the conclusion is the ultimate irony. It is short, to the point and a snap to read. A pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.
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Summary: The adventures of a Mob lawyer
Review: A journey around town via strip clubs, topless bars, and masseuse parlors is what this short novel offers. Charlie is a mob lawyer who is about to leave town, granting last minute favors, and just wasting time until he meets with Vic. Vic and Charlie have ripped off their boss and plan to split town with the money. This has a simple plot. As the reader, you end up wanting him to get away, even though he's a immoral, drunken swindler.
Rating: 
Summary: A Noirish Harvest
Review: As a mystery author with my first novel in current release, I was quite pleased when THE ICE HARVEST earned its recent Edgar nomination as Best First Novel. In THE ICE HARVEST, Scott Phillips tells the tale of Charlie Arglist as he bops from strip club to strip club in his Kansas hometown. He is a lawyer turned bagman who is killing time on Christmas Eve awaiting his partner in crime. They have embezzled enough cash from their employer to fund a new life. THE ICE HARVEST captures the noirish tone of Jim Thompson, and it is most deserving of the recognition it has received.
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Summary: A New King of Crime Fiction
Review: As an avid reader of crime/hardboiled/noir fiction, I can say so little attention is paid to the actual craft of writing in these genres. Hence, certain schlockmeisters prevail, while real writers, artists, are marginalized. ICE HARVEST is a classic. The writing is sharp, brutal and taut. It allows the plot to build. It gives depth to the character so you can see the world he exists in, dissolve, and implode. What has been described in one review as a slow first half to this novel is what is usually missing in most crime novels, i.e.. character development and the creation of a believable fictional world. There are very few greats out there writing today. Elmore Leonard is NOT one of them. Crumley, George V. Higgans, Ruth Rendell, John Flood and K.C. Constantine, these writers make the grade because unlike the schlockmeisters who focus only on a labyrinthine plot, these writers understand the importance of good writing and character development. Too ofter lazy readers wish to be whisked along by a "page-turner" on a beach and become indoctrinated into the lazy reader mindset, such as clichés are okay and a stint of 10 pages without a 9mm going off is bad. The only author who can truly get away with Byzantine plot structure subjugating realistically rendered heroes with depth is James Ellroy, and only because he plots like Tolstoy and has such twisted, deranged cops for heroes that the reader would be chilled to the bone to know more.
I highly recommend ICE HARVEST. With so many mediocre talents like Patterson, Ludlum, etc. who appear on the bestsellers lists, it would be nice to see ICE HARVEST get its just do.
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Summary: SHUFFLES ALONG WITH ATTITUDE
Review: Charlie is so relaxed, taking time to stop off to look for a drink. He seems to sleep walk through his life with caual ease, whilst carrying out such dark deeds. The irony is that he has a sentimental heart which ultimately leads to his own disaster. I enjoyed this book very much; it draws you into its sleazy heart with consumate skill: introducing a world of cheapness in every turn. People get killed but no one cares... least of all the reader, it's as if we have quickly learned that some lives are not worth anything. It's a lie of course but we believe it without realising that we too have been numbed by what we see. I recommend this as tale, full of irony and extremely well written.
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Summary: Not Dorothy's Kansas
Review: I don't think this is the place she would have expected to get back to by clicking her heels three times. Lots of sex (which nobody seems to be enjoying very much} and violence. Wonderful use of the irony of Christmas celebration as the pitiable, half-way likeable, alcoholic, ex-lawyer goes around the strip joints and porno shops and rackets he runs for the sinister boss he is trying to double-cross. He's risking his life to escape with a half-share of $250,000. Tension builds up about whether her will make it.
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Summary: Knockout Noir
Review: I have to love a writer who can tell a great story in under 300 pages. And make no mistake, this is a great story. Mean, lowdown and dirty, with a cast of characters who have not one redeeming quality between them. It all takes place in Wichita on Christmas Eve in 1979. Charlie is a shady lawyer who, with his partner, Vic, has stolen enough money from their mob connected boss to leave town and start a new, better life. While Charlie waits to hook up with his partner, who has the money, and to catch his plane, he wanders aimlessly around town in a snowstorm, visiting the strip clubs owned by his boss, drinking too much, and visiting his angry ex-wife and the children he has always neglected. Phillips captures the lonely, dreary lives of the strippers, drunks and employees of the seedy clubs and bars still open on a snowy Christmas Eve. There's an incriminating photo, a package full of money, and lots of double dealing. Charlie is a man who has some good intentions and impulses, but generally manages to overcome them. It's a violent book, funny and ironic, too. Phillips creates an atmospheric world of lonliness, brutality and sleaze. It's a stunning debut. I can't wait for the follow-up.
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Summary: A Clever Story, Very Well Told
Review: I recently read Scott Phillips' "Cottonwood" based on a favorable review and enjoyed it a great deal. As often happens when I like a newly-discovered author, I go back and check some of his earlier work. Thus, I found "Ice Harvest" and I'm glad I did.
It's a very slight work, both in terms of length and plot. Clocking in at barely 200 pages, it tells the tale of a mob lawyer about to hit the road after scamming a large amount of money. The story is old but the way Phillips tells it is fresh and new. He doesn't insult the reader by spelling everything out up front; he lets the story unfold leisurely as the lawyer, preparing to leave, makes his way around town on a bitter cold Christmas Eve. What I found refreshing is that Phillips doesn't spell out every character in terms of who he or she is; he lets you discover it. People pop up, their relationship to the lawyer is unclear, names are tossed out and the reader isn't sure who they are, but at the end it all makes perfect sense. In other words, Phillips is an author who has respect for the intelligence of his audience. His writing is crisp and the atmosphere he creates is vivid. You feel like you know the characters and their milieu; everything seems real.
As in most noir fiction, no one is what you would call an upstanding citizen but Phillips makes you care about all of them. And the final denouement, which I have to admit I didn't see coming, left me smiling; it felt just right. It is so refreshing, after having recently read a James Patterson novel, to find an author who cares about such things as plot, characterization, and atmosphere. This is an excellent piece of work, highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading
Review: Ice Harvest was a refreshingly simplistic read. A lawyer on the lamb killing time before leaving his past behind bumbles into more tangled webs than a broom being waved in a 100 year old untouched attic. Reminiscent of Tim Dorsey or Hiaasen with a noir twist.
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Summary: Gothic noir that chills
Review: It is an icy, freezing Christmas Eve in Kansas with most people staying indoors to keep warm with their families. Charlie Arglist is all alone having been divorced by his now remarried wife and estranged from his children. Charlie ran a marginally successful law practice until he joined Bill Gerard and Vic Cavanaugh, the local mobsters. Vic and Charlie have financially stripped their clients and tomorrow plan to leave the country. Charlie is spending his last hours in town making the rounds of his favorite spots, strip bars, massage parlors, and the adult movie theaters that represent his failed past. He looks forward to his bright future, but to stay alive he soon finds himself killing the people he thought were his buddies. Readers who enjoy a gothic noir will like THE ICE HARVEST, a novel that looks at the underbelly of a small town on the Great Plains. The book takes place on Christmas Eve underlying the bleakness and hopelessness of the Charlies of the world who dominate the ever-darkening story line. Scott Phillips cleverly deals out information one card at a time so that the antihero's tale is not fully revealed until the ironic ending that will surprise the audience. Although this is Mr. Phillips' debut novel, it appears he has a long career ahead of him. Harriet Klausner
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