Stephen White: Cold Case

Signet Fiction (Paperback), ISBN 0-451-20155-8

Intelligently written, totally literate, plausible as a documentary, yet compelling reading sums up my reaction to Cold Case.

Ten years after person or persons unknown mutilated and murdered two teenage girls, a relatively obscure organization called Locard reopens the cold case and asks clinical psychologist Alan Gregory to join the team. Gregory’s expertise and his current home state (Colorado, where the murders occurred) qualify him to compile a psychological profile of the two dead girls. To do his job, Gregory must uncover their darkest secrets, even if that knowledge destroys the innocent as well as the guilty.

Evidently continuing characters in White’s thrillers, Gregory and his wife Lauren (a prosecuting attorney who suffers from MS) prove well defined, completely believable, and likable. Lest this comment gives the wrong impression, let me assure you that Cold Case stands alone and stands tall, to boot.

The excellent and intricate plot — from the rather chilling beginning to the surprise ending — displays both cohesiveness and spine-tingling suspense. Gregory, as the first person narrator, shows as much as he tells and takes the reader along on his wild and dangerous ride toward solving the case. The subplots add to the whole by not only giving a day by day glimpse into the lives of the protagonists, but also lending the work verisimilitude.

Other reviewers called Cold Case a page-turner, but I didn’t find it so. Instead, I found it a book to savor, to enjoy the careful attention to details, to see the mosaic of diverse elements arranged into a harmonious whole. Cold Case will go on my keeper shelf. I plan to re-read it at some future date and undoubtedly will find new observations and insights to absorb.

Patricia Lucas White

Patricia Lucas White’s latest historical novel, To Last a Lifetime, was an Eppie finalist for 2003. To Last a Lifetime and two of her fantasy romances, the Sapphire Award-winning A Wizard Scorned and The Godmother Sanction, can be ordered through Hard Shell Word Factory. Her recent contemporary, PS, I’ve Taken a Lover, is available from Lionhearted Books.