Walking on Thin Ice

The more I read of Walking on Thin Ice, the more intrigued I became. What starts as a murder mystery quickly takes on a supernatural quality as Burns incorporates the topic of lucid dreaming. While lucid dreaming is a well-documented phenomenon, Burns includes it in a way that makes the reader wonder where Rachel’s reality ends and her dreams begin. As the story progresses, the reader finds Rachel becoming more and more absorbed with communicating with her father through her dreams in order to solve Julia’s murder. But is she really communicating with him, or is she tapping into her deep subconscious and intuition? This is a question each reader will need to answer for themselves.

If your goal is to solve the crime before Burns reveals what happened, then best of luck to you because I did not! He presents multiple scenarios of what could have happened, and I found myself in constant doubt about my own theories. In a way, Burns provides the reader with the power to choose the ending. There is a reasonable explanation for the logic-minded reader, but for the reader that enjoys a supernatural element, there is also a satisfying ending. I landed somewhere in the middle, believing that each explanation played a role in Rachel’s story.