Dead Inside

A Kelsey Hawk Mystery #1

by Kate Bold

In the desolate, unforgiving landscape of small town North Dakota, bodies are found encased in ice. Tough and brilliant FBI special agent 30-year-old Kelsey Hawk, angering her superiors, is relocated to the North Dakota field office, near her hometown which she’d vowed to never return to. In a deadly game of cat and mouse, the stakes couldn’t be higher, as an FBI agent and a killer collide…

When she was just a child, Kelsey’s entire family was murdered, leaving her, the sole survivor, to grow up in the foster system. A rising star in the FBI, Kelsey set her ambitions on being assigned to a field office in the big city, away from the ghosts of her past. But when she’s reassigned to a small town in North Dakota, she can’t help but remember all the tragedy she fought so hard to leave behind.

Can she stop this killer in time?

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Ebooks

159 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 28, 2023

About the author

Bestselling author Kate Bold is author of the ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); of the ASHLEY HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); of the CAMILLE GRACE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising eight books (and counting); of the HARLEY COLE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising ten books (and counting); of the KAYLIE BROOKS SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting); and of the EVE HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting). Kate loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.kateboldauthor.com to join the mailing list, receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.

BOOKS BY KATE BOLD

EVE HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER

IN HIS BLOOD (Book #1)

IN HIS SIGHTS (Book #2)

IN HIS REACH (Book #3)

IN HIS MIND (Book #4)

IN HIS WAY (Book #5)

(and counting)

KAYLIE BROOKS SUSPENSE THRILLER

LAST BREATH (Book #1)

LAST CHANCE (Book #2)

LAST WISH (Book #3)

LAST SHOT (Book #4)

LAST MISTAKE (Book #5)

(and counting)

HARLEY COLE SUSPENSE THRILLER

NOWHERE SAFE (Book #1)

NOWHERE LEFT (Book #2)

NOWHERE TO RUN (Book #3)

NOWHERE LIKE THIS (Book #4)

NOWHERE GIRL (Book #5)

NOWHERE TO HIDE (Book #6)

NOWHERE CERTAIN (Book #7)

NOWHERE PURE (Book #8)

NOWHERE SOUND (Book #9)

NOWHERE SANE (Book #10)

(and counting)

CAMILLE GRACE SUSPENSE THRILLER

NOT ME (Book #1)

NOT NOW (Book #2)

NOT WELL (Book #3)

NOT HER (Book #4)

NOT NORMAL (Book #5)

NOT AGAIN (Book #6)

NOT SAFE (Book #7)

NOT TODAY (Book #8)

(and counting)

ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER

THE KILLING GAME (Book #1)

THE KILLING TIDE (Book #2)

THE KILLING HOUR (Book #3)

THE KILLING POINT (Book #4)

THE KILLING FOG (Book #5)

THE KILLING PLACE (Book #6)

(and counting)

ASHLEY HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER

LET ME GO (Book #1)

LET ME OUT (Book #2)

LET ME LIVE (Book #3)

LET ME BREATHE (Book #4)

LET ME FORGET (Book #5)

LET ME ESCAPE (Book #6)

(and counting)

Reviews

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this mystery/thriller. I look forward to hopefully reading more in the series soon!

[Elaine and Tess the Springer. I won’t be on GR for a bit. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read.

A very good quick read. It's a fast-moving thriller with a very likeable main character who makes her own rules and has made herself an enemy that could see her career end almost before it begins. Worth a read.

[Natalia Bar · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
This felt underdeveloped. There is potential for the characters, but as they were written they felt flat - the same as the story. There is no complex plot to follow along, every development was explained. Not hating it, it may just pick up in the future.

[Melody Kemble · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star for a DNF. I wanted to enjoy this story, but omg, the dialogue, the writing, and because I was listening to the audiobook, the narrator. The story is set in North Dakota, but the narrator is English. A British accent was a bit jarring when one's expecting Midwest. 😆 Somewhere between chapter 5 and chapter 8, there were so many mispronounced words I wondered if the narrator was only saying the words she was seeing without thinking what the words actually were. Anyways, chapter 8 was where I stopped listening. I couldn't listen any more about a serial killer in the middle of winter in ND and acting ridiculous.

[Heather Littman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook is NOT good; it’s read by an AI voice that has no emotion or inflection. The writing is decent, but the narration definitely takes away from it.

[Krystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, easy read. It kept me intrigued and not wanting to pause the story. I checked it out on a Bonus Borrow from Hoopla, and ai have no complaints. I love when I am surprised by reading an author I did not know about or a series I had never heard of. I do plan to complete the series. I’m invested in Kelsey now and want to see her growth. Wonder if she’ll let small town North Dakota become her “home”.

[Coralie]

felt like a story straight out of criminal minds

[Texas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than expected.

I like this author. Her writing style is interesting. She does not repeat herself continuously with the demons her characters carry. There is not much filler and the pace is good and steady. While Hawk is reckless, she is not a stupid character, and the reader is not bombarded with "strong and independent woman" phrases. The story lines are interesting. I am surprised that somehow I missed this prolific author and happy at the serendipitous way I discovered her. Source: My Kindle library.

Kelsey Hawk Mystery Series:
Dead Inside,#1 - Good introduction to the world of Hawk and her fellow law enforcement officers. The killer and the investigation are interesting and the pages flew by quickly. I like the scene between her and Ernest. 4*

Dead Reckoning, #2 - This story begins soon after DI ends. More snow and freezing did not make this story as interesting as DI, but still a good story. I like the relationships developing between the three law enforcement officers, a nice change from the norm. 4*
Kelsey Hawk Mystery Series.

[Courtney Johnston · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️⭐️✨
Audiobook👂🏻

The audio version I listened to was narrated by AI which definitely prevented me from enjoying this book. Frequent mispronunciation of common words.

The plot was fine, but the antagonistic nature of the male characters (not the killer obvi) was cheesy and annoying and unnecessary.

[Alexis Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ice block killer…

A quick and easy read. I would have liked a little more substance. I loved the story so it was definitely too short. I’m going to start the second book to see what comes next.

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A new series for me, and it starts on a positive note. Kelsey Hawk, FBI Agent, starts her new assignment In North Dakota as sort of a punishment from her old boss because she has her own approaches and her own brain, and that is not to be accepted by her old boss. In actuality I do understand the importance of following rules even when they seem unreasonable-but saving lives is the ultimate goal... Anyway...
She starts right in on a big important multi murder case, and that sort of makes the “punishment" moot. But she's painted with deep flaws and emotions, and she starts to work through them and actually begins to share them. I love this book, and I may look forward to the next one in the series-but I have to be careful about saying that! I have so many series that I need to continue with And continuing some of the ones that I have had on my list for longer may be more important than getting started more with the newer ones...

[Jerry B · Rating 3 out of 5]

This somewhat short mystery is the first in the FBI Special Agent Kelsey Hawk series, both this set and its author new to us. Bold is a prolific ebook writer, with some ten series underway, each with a half-dozen or so novels. In this Hawk debut, she is banned to a small North Dakota town after solving a big case but breaking all kinds of FBI rules in the process, a popular theme lately with stories about female law enforcement officers. Anyhow, she promptly gets involved hunting a serial killer who freezes his females victims in big blocks of ice, certainly a novel modus operandi. Will she succeed in the Smallville and alienate all her colleagues along the way? Will she prevent even more killings? Read on to find out, in a fairly entertaining plot of about novella size. {3.5}

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really fast paced! No words wasted and got right to the point. This is a serial killer police procedural from the point of view of a scarred, trauma-ridden, broken shell of a FBI agent exiled to the backwoods of a small North Dakota town. The character development was pretty good for such a short book

[Cheryce · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book. kept me wanting more. I really enjoyed enjoy the main character. can't wait to read more from this series.

[Esteé Hallatt · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ 64%

[Stacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

i feel the book was hard to get into because of the narrator. ( i'm not saying the narrator isn't a good narrator I just don't think she's a good fit for this series)

[Deborah Byrne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good book

I liked the main characters and the FBI agent's back story. The plot was great and the writer did a wonderful job of getting into the killer's head. Looking forward to the next book in the series.

[D.J. Pitsiladis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kelsey Hawk is an FBI agent with a painful past. When she was a young child, an unknown person murdered her parents and older sister in their beds. Her life got spared, but she spent her years growing up in the foster care system. She eventually attends and graduates from Quantico and becomes a full-fledged agent, but one that rubs her superiors the wrong way. She is impulsive, defies orders, and prefers to tackle things on her own, regardless of the risk to her own life. When she ignores an order to stand down and wait for backup before taking down a violent human trafficker, her boss gets her transferred to a small town office in Winchberg, North Dakota. The day prior to her arrival, a woman’s body encased in ice is discovered at the local Winter Festival. This proves to be just the first move in a game of cat and mouse with a psychopathic killer with a penchant for the cold. Along the way, she gets a taste of how welcoming people in a small town can be, which is something she needs to get used to.

As I said above, this story has a lot of promise and some good bones to it. It clocks in at a relatively short length of 169 pages, so it hits the points well without wasting movement. The pacing is fast, which you expect in a story of this size. It also leaves enough dangling ends for future stories to pick up, as this is the first in a new series by the author. These are the parts I enjoyed about it.

For as much good that it offers, there is an almost equal amount of not so good holding the story back, at least for me. First, the characters are all cliched enough to be almost cookie cutter versions of what they’re supposed to be. Kelsey is a loner whose troubled past is her excuse to go things alone. Her former boss isn’t content with just shipping her away, but wants to ruin her career and life for no other reason than to defy him. The deputy she partners with is a hometown boy, and the sheriff is worried about Kelsey taking his job until he isn’t. The list goes on and on.

Another thing that grinds my gears about the book was the lack of research done about the state she sets the book in. Aside from getting a couple of names correct (Bismarck, Enchanted Highway, and City of Bridges), nothing in the book is remotely correct about the state. Seeing thunder, lightning, and hail during a blizzard is a rarity, as in I’ve only seen it once or twice in my thirty-two years of living here. The Enchanted Highway is a couple of hours from Bismarck and over five hours away from the City of Bridges in nice weather. There are no outdoor winter festivals because of how cold and/or snowy it gets, and carnival style rides are definitely not used in the winter months for safety sake. The story also posits that a small town’s population is almost six-thousand people, when actual small towns in North Dakota are a couple of hundred at best. Practically nothing about the state mentioned in this book is accurate, which is a glaring issue for me.

Even with all the bad points of the book, I see enough promise in Kate as a storyteller to give another of her books a chance. If you like a book that strikes fast and runs a sprint to the finish line, this book may be for you. However, if you are a stickler for the tiny details and prefer a well drawn out story with characters who aren’t cookie cutter or cliches, then this book might not be for you.

[Krystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good start to a series. This time the FBI agent who family was murdered when she was a child, not just her sister which seems to always be the go to angle. I did feel like the Deputy wasn’t as…….I don’t know……as manly as I was expecting him to be based on the first couple of pages and then to find out he served and saw war. He should have been….more. More aggressive. Smarter. More observant. I don’t know. Just more. Not sure why her ex boss hates her so much or why he’s sending anonymous messages but it’s a strange twist to the story that I didn’t see coming. Also not surprised she’s going to look for her family’s killer after all this time.

[Q Cash · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the best Kate Bold books that I have listened to. The book was about 2.5 hours on 1.75x speed. It was again about a trouble female detective/FBI agent that has a troubled past like al Kate Bold books I have listened too. The character development was better than some of the other books. I would listen to the next one in the series if it is free or cheap for sure to see how the main character progresses. Plus I thought the story line was something different. It would make a good Criminal Minds episode.

[Diana E Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dream Team

Kelsey and John worked well together. This was somewhat of a fresh take on the FBI thrillers. It was short and jammed packed with action and excitement. The story stayed on point. Should I mention the grammar errors, pronouns usage and the typos that are common these days. Kate Bold did a good job although there are some sentences that are identical to those used by Blake Pierce in his writing.

[Shanoah · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're considering reading, do not listen to the audiobook. I understand it is a computer generated voice, but I didn't realize how bad it could be. There are constantly mispronounced words, and it's very monotone, which had me zoning out at times. Overall, the book is okay. It's nothing special, just your basic crime procedural. There is little to no character back story or development. It was very anticlimactic.

[Michael Tygart · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really nice feel good story

Dramatic, a bit predictable, but a nice afternoons reading material. Down on her luck FBI agent gets posted to an undesirable assignment but gets right into a brutal murder situation that quickly spirals out of control. A bit of an abbreviated climax leaves one wishing for a bit more plot development, but alls well that ends well.

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

The protagonist is a super hero and she saves the day, sort of a Sherlock Holmes and Batman rolled into one. Um, the characters do not feel real and the situation is unbelievable. I will not be continuing this series.

[Ericka Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very fast paced and a quick read. This book is a murder mystery. An FBI agent is transferred to North Dakota by her vindictive boss. There, she investigates serial murders with a local deputy. The murders involve displaying women in blocks of ice.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting plot but the author did not do due diligence in research on ND. Nothing like the ND I know

[Dave Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

North Dakota

This is a ok book but people do not ride bikes in the winter and there are no mountains in north Dakota

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished listening to Dead Inside by Kate Bold, and I have… feelings. Let’s start with the story itself.

The killer freezes women in blocks of ice and puts them on display at winter festivals. That is next-level unhinged. It’s the kind of premise that makes you stop and think, Who comes up with this stuff? And then immediately keep listening because you need to know what happens next.

FBI Agent Kelsey Hawk is intense, driven, and occasionally impulsive, which is exactly why her partnership with Deputy Sheriff John Gallant works so well. He’s steady where she’s sharp, calm where she pushes. I genuinely enjoyed their dynamic. He was such a strong supporting character without feeling overshadowed.

If I had read this in hard copy, I would have easily given the story five stars. The pacing was solid. The concept was bold (no pun intended). The killer was truly unsettling. This is my kind of crime thriller...high stakes, twisted, and just a little bit outrageous.

Now. We need to talk about the audiobook narration.

Mispronunciations of common words, like hoped ("ho'-ped"). Flat delivery. Almost no inflection. And, most distracting of all, the AI voice would sometimes go up for male characters and down for female characters. Backwards. Repeatedly. It completely pulled me out of the tension. And in a thriller, tension is everything.

The narration didn’t just fail to elevate the story, it actively worked against it. I would rate the story a five. The narration, on the other hand, was a negative five. It genuinely took away from what was otherwise a gripping read.

If you’re interested in this one, I strongly recommend reading it rather than listening. The story deserves better than the performance it got.

[Staci Troilo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dead Inside is book one of the Kelsey Hawk FBI Suspense Thriller series. We meet Kelsey when she ignores procedure to close a case, which angers her supervisor so much, he has her transferred (or should I say banished) to a small town in North Dakota. In the winter, no less.

Winter is vital to this plot. Murder victims are found frozen in blocks of ice. Kelsey (and her, for lack of a better word, partner) must find clues amid a challenging landscape and track the killer in harrowing conditions. It’s a race to see who solves it faster—Kelsey or the reader.

The frigid landscape is practically a character in and of itself. Kelsey initially hates it there and resents the slow pace and community vibe of all the residents—especially the law enforcement she must work with. But they’re a good balance for her. She’s driven (sometimes to a fault). She’s reckless. She a loner who keeps people at arm’s length. She would be an annoying and unsympathetic character if we didn’t know about her tragic past. And even though her coworkers know nothing about her, they keep trying to welcome her and bring her into their fold. By the end, she hasn’t thawed much more than the weather has, but we see cracks in her ice. It’s going to be a joy to watch her character arc develop as she warms to her new community and team.

This is a mystery with a tight plot, solid pace, and compelling characters that will leave you wanting more.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Bold is a great writer. Her characters are well fleshed out, with a personality and well written. Ms. Bold continues her strong points in Dead Inside (A Kelsey Hawk FBI Suspense Thriller, Book One Series.

The book begins with Kelsey being disobedient to her orders to wait for back up. As a result of her disobeying her SAC's orders to wait, she is transferred to the most boring city her former boss could think, Winchburg, North Dakota. She is angry she's been transferred there because she feels being there will prevent her from catching any bad guys. She (emotionally) "needs" to catch as many bad guys as she can due to her parents and sister years earlier being killed when Kelsey was 10 and their killer was never caught.

Kelsey, however, is thrown immediately into the "ice-box killer" case when a dead woman encased in a block of ice is unveiled at a winter festival Winchburg has held for years. The search for the killer is on.

I've read several Kate Bold books and they've all been well written, well plotted out books. This one is just as well written and well plotted. Ms. Bold's suspense thriller books keep me interested and have never felt like "repetitive" or "recycled" stories. I already have several more bought, waiting to be read.