ASHLEY KALAGIAN BLUNT Cold Truth. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

Set amid the ferocious cold of a Canadian winter, Ashley Kalagian Blunt’s new novel continues her exploration of the threats of life online.

In her debut novel, Dark Mode, Kalagian Blunt dug deep into the murky world of stalking and the personal toll of never-ending threats. Cold Truth provides another take on some different forms of threats and manipulation, and their impact.

Harlow, her sister Blaise and their dad Scott have a complicated relationship. The sisters are semi-estranged, but Harlow has stayed close to her father since the death of her mother. There’s something bubbling away under the surface about that death, although that’s just part of the fraught backstory of this family.

Despite living in Winnipeg, Canada, dubbed ‘North America’s strangest city’ and renowned for its sub-zero temperatures, Harlow is worried enough about her father to head through a blizzard to his house.

Driving in the storm was a mistake. Snow pummelled the windshield and polished the highway to sheer ice. Harlow’s plan for tonight had been simple – light the gas fireplace, curl up on the sofa with a bowl of maple pecan ice-cream and rewatch Canadian Wild, skipping the predator bits. Animals getting attacked might be reality, but who could stand to see it?

Harlow has always been very public about her life, using her position as an influencer to further her business objectives, running popular tours for tourists fascinated by the city, its weather and reputation. Until her father mysteriously disappears, and her desperate search to find him leaves her trying to find a way to balance that high profile with a threat that is increasingly odd.

http://ucx01y4re2e71w2rm3g3.onion
16 January
To: requests@MortemEt.com
From: anonymous00@PrivateMail.com

I have a job I need done within the next 24 hours. The target is in Winnipeg, Canada. It needs to look like an accident or possibly a suicide. Send your fees and what method you plan to use. I’m here waiting for your reply.

Not that Harlow knows about MortemET or the conversation that’s going on in the background when she finally arrives at her father’s house to find he is definitely missing and somebody is creeping around in the house.

A figure dressed in black barrelled out of the house. Before Harlow could process what was happening, a hand slammed into her chest and she tumbled off the landing. Pain exploded through the back of her head.

It turns out the secrets Scott Close may have been keeping from his daughters are only part of the story. There are things that happened in the past in this family, between them and their much-missed mother, that have created odd dynamics. Including with a neighbour who has gone from close friend to antagonist over a snow maze and various other activities on his property. There aren’t many suspects for the police to look at when it comes to trying to find Scott, but Harlow, in particular, isn’t happy with how they are proceeding, and pushes ahead with her own search, discovering a lot of very complicated and weird goings-on in the process.

Wading through all sorts of red herrings and odd byways, Harlow finds herself dealing with a form of catfishing that sends her and Blaise off on a wild goose chase. Eventually she discovers there’s something very wrong about some of the people supposedly on their side, and then there’s the on-off relationship with Blaise. Who now has a boyfriend with some very dodgy connections and seems to be making a lot of money from a pyramid scheme. Meanwhile Harlow’s recently single after her relationship imploded over suggestions her boyfriend was cheating, and her own business is starting to go downhill as she’s increasingly distracted by the disappearance of her father. It’s probably just as well that she doesn’t know what else is going on in the background of all their lives, or in a remote location to somebody unnamed.

Instead of chopping the finger off, the shears jammed on the bone, tearing at the muscle. The old guy howled, bucking against the duct tape, sending drops of blood flying.

Cold Truth is a very different beast from that first novel. This work is built around a frustrating hero figure in Harlow, somebody all action, bluster and desperate decisions. There’s also something very ghostly and multi-threaded about the threats, with similarities to hacking and breaches of digital privacy, and differences in that the world of crypto-currency is central to this story. Although you’d normally expect your hired muscle to be a bit better at it than the man leading this motley group of kidnappers.

The Tall Man didn’t know much more about him, except that he had one point seven million dollars’ worth of Bitcoin in a crypto wallet and had chosen to die rather than give up the key.

As with the earlier novel, there are warnings woven into the narrative, and these could serve as an excuse for some of Harlow’s worst excesses. After all, she is not in control, and doesn’t know she’s being manipulated.

The author has also used the extreme weather to great effect. A Canadian Australian, Kalagian Blunt is obviously aware of how hard it is for anyone who has never experienced it to understand just how cold Canada can be, so chapter headings listing temperatures like –21°C, –30°C and a positively balmy –3°C serve as none-too-gentle reminders that we’re most definitely not in Australia.

The exposed skin on Harlow’s face burned with cold. The frostbite from Thursday was already fiercely painful. Her shoulders curled in, trying to preserve her body heat. Even her teeth were cold. The snow was up to her knees.

The sense of threat and physical pain that the weather brings with it is nothing compared to the psychological pain that Harlow experiences when she finally realises that it’s the things the family has tried to keep hidden, the unspoken resentments and poor decisions, that have led to the situation they now find themselves in. And the sudden, glaring awareness of just how easily expectations, understanding, and belief can be manipulated.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt Cold Truth Ultimo Press 2025 400pp $34.99

Karen Chisholm blogs from austcrimefiction.org, where she posts book reviews as well as author biographies.

You can buy Cold Truth from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW.

You can also check if it is available from Newtown Library.

If you’d like to help keep the Newtown Review of Books a free and independent site for book reviews, please consider making a donation. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Tags: Ashley Kalagian | Blunt, bitcoin, catfishing, Dark Mode, kidnapping, online influencers, thriller, Winnipeg