The Book of Cold Cases

January 10, 2022
Set in 2017, this chilling paranormal thriller from bestseller St. James (The Sun Down Motel) stars 29-year-old Shea Collins, a medical receptionist in Claire Lake, Ore., by day, who by night runs the Book of Cold Cases, a blog devoted to unsolved true crimes. One morning at work, Shea recognizes one of the patients as Beth Greer, an elusive, affluent woman who was a suspect in the Lady Killer murders in 1977. Two Claire Lake men were shot in cold blood, and though a witness saw Beth fleeing the scene, she insisted she was innocent and was acquitted at trial. Since the crimes are still unsolved, Shea gets Beth’s permission to interview her. They often meet at Beth’s mansion, where Beth reveals her side of the story through vivid flashbacks involving her troubled adolescence and adulthood. Meanwhile, Shea becomes increasingly uneasy in the house and suspects it may be haunted. St. James keeps the suspense high, though some readers will wonder why she reveals a major plot twist in the middle of the book. Horror fans will want to check this out. Agent: Pamela Hopkins, Hopkins Literary Assoc.

Starred review from February 1, 2022

Deftly mingling suspense with a dash of horror and of romance, St. James (The Broken Girls) delivers another superbly entertaining, genre-blending delight. Working as a receptionist in a doctor's office pays the bills, but Shea Collins's real passion is murder. Specifically, re-examining unsolved cases via her true crime-focused blog, The Book of Cold Cases. So when she gets the opportunity to interview reclusive Elizabeth Greer, who was charged and then acquitted of murdering two men 40 years ago, Shea's thrilled. But soon after she first talks with Beth, she starts to wonder if this is a writer's dream come true or a nightmare in the making. VERDICT When it comes to sending shivers down readers' spines, St. James gives Shirley Jackson a run for her money, and her latest addictively readable novel will have one sleeping with the lights on.--John Charles

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2022
In St. James' latest supernatural thriller, an up-and-coming true-crime blogger is obsessed with solving a series of decades-old murders that may or may not have been committed by a cold, wealthy heiress living in a gothic cliffside mansion. Twenty-nine-year-old Shea Collins, recently divorced, is a medical receptionist in Claire Lake, Oregon, by day and runs a popular blog called Book of Cold Cases at night. One local case in particular haunts her: the Lady Killer murders. In 1977, 23-year-old Beth Greer was accused of murdering two strange men. Though she proclaimed her innocence from the start and was later acquitted, most people in Claire Lake have always believed Beth got away with murder. The evidence is circumstantial but damning. An eyewitness claimed to see Beth leaving the scene of one of the shootings, a cryptic note (handwriting analysis inconclusive) was found nearby, and, worst of all, the same weapon used to shoot the two men had also been used to kill Beth's father in an attempted burglary a few years earlier. It didn't help that Beth was young, beautiful, wealthy, and totally unwilling to play nice with the press. The media pounced on her, dubbing her the Lady Killer, and she's been a recluse ever since. After a chance encounter at the doctor's office where Shea works, Beth agrees to sit down for an interview at her eerie house near the sea, where something otherworldly and terrifying roams the dark, empty halls. And so the strange and twisted truth behind the mansion, the Greer family, and the Lady Killer murders is about to come to light--provided Shea can survive to tell the tale. Switching between Shea's point of view and Beth's (both past and present), St. James expertly builds tension between the women's stories, indulging in some genre expectations and thwarting others along the way. A twisty and satisfying paranormal mystery you won't want to read alone at night.

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Starred review from March 15, 2022
The sense of foreboding begins with the opening description of the Greer mansion overlooking the ocean on the outskirts of Claire Lake, Oregon. It continues as Shea Collins pulls back layer after layer of truth and fiction surrounding the murders of two men 40 years earlier in 1977. Beth Greer was arrested for the crimes but acquitted. By day, Shea is a receptionist in a doctor's office, but in the evening she researches and blogs about cold cases, including the Greer case. When Greer comes into the doctor's office, Shea recognizes her and, on impulse, follows her as she leaves. Beth unexpectedly allows an interview, the first since the events years before, and then grants access to other principals in the case. Told in vignettes that jump back and forth in time, the multilayered story seems baffling at first. Why would the young, beautiful, and rich Beth Greer commit murder? There was a witness but no hard evidence. As Shea proceeds, she discovers the unsettling truth, with supernatural hooks into the present day. St. James' signature ability to tell connecting stories across decades (established in both The Broken Girls, 2018, and The Sun Down Motel, 2020) is on display here, too, in a gripping tale that will appeal to fans of crime fiction tinged with the supernatural.

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