1977. A city in Oregon is terrified by two shocking murders. Dubbed the Lady Killer Murders, two men, randomly chosen, both shot with the same gun. Strange notes were found at the scene of the crimes. The suspect, Beth Greer, fit the murders like a glove. Rich, and seen leaving one of the murder scenes, the eccentric Beth was eventually acquitted and became a recluse in her mansion.
2017. Receptionist by day, Shea Collins runs a true-crime website by night. The Book of Cold Cases is Shea’s passion, fueled by her own attempted abduction when she was younger. Shea meets Beth by chance in town and knows who she is. Rolling the dice, Shea asks Beth for an interview … and Beth says yes.
Shea is never comfortable meeting Beth at her mansion. Things move around when she’s not watching, and she just knows there was a girl outside the window looking in. She’s close to the truth about this cold case, and Beth is much more charming than Shea anticipated. But something is just not right … is Shea being manipulated by a cunning murderer, or is there something else lurking in the shadows of the Greer mansion?
Why we’re excited about this book:
When it comes to writing convincing characters, shifting timelines, and creepy situations we can’t get out of our heads, Simone St. James consistently delivers the goods. St. James is the author of The Haunting of Maddy Claire, Silence for the Dead, The Other Side of Midnight, The Broken Girls, and The Sun Down Motel. With her latest, St. James taps into our obsession with true crime with the story of a cold case blogger scoring the interview of a lifetime, blurring the lines between reality and the supernatural. Wendy Webb (The Keepers of Metsan Valo) says: “This modern Gothic triumph is a cross between your most binge worthy true crime podcast and The Haunting of Hill House. It’s compulsively readable … but don’t read it at night. The hauntings in this story scared me, and I write this stuff for a living.”, and Jennifer McMahon (The Drowning Kind) says: “Simone St. James knows how to haunt you. The Book of Cold Cases is St. James at the top of her game, expertly weaving the past and the present to reveal a chilling tapestry of real world mystery and supernatural suspense that will have you turning pages well past your bedtime and jumping at every little sound.”
Forthcoming from Berkley Publishing 15 March 2022, The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA