Winter of Frozen Dreams: The Shocking True Story of Seduction, Suspicion, and Murder in Madison
Apr 2014 · Open Road Media
4.0star
9 reviews
Ebook
337
Pages
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About this ebook
The true story of Barbara Hoffman is a tale of money, men, and the Madison, Wisconsin, massage parlor where a biochemistry major turned into a murderer.
On a freezing Christmas morning, a distraught young man named Gerald Davies led Madison police to Tomahawk Ridge, where they found the body of Harold Berge, naked, bloody, and beaten. Davies insisted that he hadn’t killed the man, but that he and his fiancée had simply buried the corpse in a snowbank.
The investigation confirmed that the victim had died in the apartment of Barbara Hoffman—a young woman who had dropped out of the University of Wisconsin and had worked at Jan’s Health Studio, a local massage parlor. She and Davies, whom she met at Jan’s, had recently become engaged.
The circumstances were suspicious already. But when the police discovered that Berge was Hoffman’s ex-lover, that he had signed over his house and an insurance policy to her—and that Davies had also made her his beneficiary—they began to suspect that Davies might also be in danger . . .
The police kept him under watch, but eventually had to stop surveillance. Soon after, Davies turned up dead in his bathtub, a Valium bottle nearby, in an apparent suicide. But, an accomplished student of chemistry, Hoffman knew how tricky it could be to detect cyanide poisoning. It would take a dedicated effort by detectives to sort out the truth about the highly intelligent masseuse, her work in the shadowy local sex trade, and the real circumstances that led two of her clients to their deaths.
Winter of Frozen Dreams is the full story of the case that would become a sensational televised trial and inspire a film of the same name starring Thora Birch. It’s a “snappy read” by an author with a “talent for sleuthy description and psychological insight” (Kirkus Reviews).
On a freezing Christmas morning, a distraught young man named Gerald Davies led Madison police to Tomahawk Ridge, where they found the body of Harold Berge, naked, bloody, and beaten. Davies insisted that he hadn’t killed the man, but that he and his fiancée had simply buried the corpse in a snowbank.
The investigation confirmed that the victim had died in the apartment of Barbara Hoffman—a young woman who had dropped out of the University of Wisconsin and had worked at Jan’s Health Studio, a local massage parlor. She and Davies, whom she met at Jan’s, had recently become engaged.
The circumstances were suspicious already. But when the police discovered that Berge was Hoffman’s ex-lover, that he had signed over his house and an insurance policy to her—and that Davies had also made her his beneficiary—they began to suspect that Davies might also be in danger . . .
The police kept him under watch, but eventually had to stop surveillance. Soon after, Davies turned up dead in his bathtub, a Valium bottle nearby, in an apparent suicide. But, an accomplished student of chemistry, Hoffman knew how tricky it could be to detect cyanide poisoning. It would take a dedicated effort by detectives to sort out the truth about the highly intelligent masseuse, her work in the shadowy local sex trade, and the real circumstances that led two of her clients to their deaths.
Winter of Frozen Dreams is the full story of the case that would become a sensational televised trial and inspire a film of the same name starring Thora Birch. It’s a “snappy read” by an author with a “talent for sleuthy description and psychological insight” (Kirkus Reviews).
Ratings and reviews
4.0
9 reviews
Brenda Joyner
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January 18, 2016
If you're going to read this book buy the electronic version with the built in dictionary. A few of the words in it have fallen out of common use and it helps to have easy access for clarification. I dislike the fact that the pictures are in the middle of the book. The editing needs to be corrected. The book was good. The only way I'm willing to dive into the underworld that is summarized in the book is by reading about it, so I wished the take down of that world had been further explored. Not bad though.
Sharon Loper
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July 29, 2019
Well-written in a just the facts way. Leaves the reader curious about Barbara Hoffman.
Lisa Sanderson
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January 4, 2016
Murder mystery.
About the author
Karl Harter is the author of Winter of Frozen Dreams: The Shocking True Story of Seduction, Suspicion and Murder in Madison. The book was first published in 1990. Harter researched the book for four years and lived in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife at the time.
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