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Cold Truth: A Novel

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Overview

TRUTH HAS DEADLY CONSEQUENCES Twenty-six years ago, even before a series of brutal murders rocked the idyllic town of Bowers Inlet, Cassie Burke lost her parents, her sister, and nearly her own life to a transient befriended by her father. Back then, Cassie was a scared kid-now she's a homicide cop. Back then, the suspect was caught and convicted-he died in prison. But now the killing has started again. And all signs indicate that the Bayside Strangler has come back for more. With too many victims and too few suspects, Cassie has her hands full investigating the case, while working through the old trauma it has brought to the surface. Luckily, FBI agent Rick Cisco is dispatched to lend support. Together, Cassie and Rick must uncover the link between the dark past and the dangerous present to bring this small town's long nightmare to an end. If they fail, an elusive fiend will slip back into the shadows . . . to watch and wait-and kill another day.

Editorial Reviews

An uncommonly crafty serial killer challenges two crime-fighting women with problematic pasts in the first of a new romantic suspense trilogy from RITA-nominee Stewart (Dead End). In a tantalizing prologue, Regan Landry, the daughter of a recently murdered famous true crime writer, discusses her father's files of unsolved cases in a TV interview, which inspires a globe-trotting mass murderer to return to the small Jersey shore town where his killing spree began. It's also home to police detective Cassandra Reilly, whose entire family was slaughtered 26 years before by a killer who'd been caught. Or had he As the new body count climbs, Cassie and Regan, paired with two suitably strong yet sensitive FBI agents, gradually unravel an obsession-rooted mystery spanning continents and decades, in which nearly everyone could be a suspect. As in most of Stewart's work, sex is minimal; emotional entanglements focus as strongly on family ties as romantic love. But the author's flair for complex characterization makes both of the book's professional-turned-personal relationships at least as intriguing and enjoyable as its subtle suspense. Agent, Loretta Barrett. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Mariah Stewart

Mariah Stewart is the bestselling author of ten novels and three novellas. A RITA finalist for romantic suspense, she is the recipient of the Award of Excellence for contemporary romance, a RIO (Reviewers International) Award honoring excellence in women's fiction, a Reviewers Choice Award from Romantic Times magazine, and a two-time recipient of the Golden Leaf Award for contemporary romance. A native of Hightstown, New Jersey, she lives in a Philadelphia suburb with her husband, two teenage daughters, and two rambunctious golden retrievers in a century old Victorian country home where she's neglecting her garden and working on her next book.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Random House

Filesize

616.73 KB

Number of Pages

400

eBook ISBN

9780345484796

Excerpt from: Cold Truth by Mariah Stewart

The early-morning fog had yet to be burned off by a sun still snoozing behind low-lying clouds, but the gulls were already circling over the bay and the shorebirds had begun to forage along the waterline. Although almost summer, the air still bore a bit of a chill, and the remnants of a cool spring night hung in the damp air. Waves rolled gently onto the beach, tiny swells outlined with white foam that left damp impressions on the pale yellow sand. Overhead, a gull screamed at the intruder who crested the top of the dune.

ýOh, shut up.ý The woman barely glanced at the ornery bird that swooped over her head and continued to rain gull curses down upon her.

Detective Cassandra Burke stood with her hands on her hips, and through the fog sought the outline of the Barnegat Lighthouse across the bay. Sheýd just ended her fourth night of surveillance of a motel where suspected drug sales were being conducted, and she was both exhausted from lack of sleep and stiff from inactivity. She toed off her shoes and left them in the sand, then set off for the marina a mile down the beach. Sheýd walk the kinks out, then run back. Two miles wasnýt really long enough, but it was the best she could do this morning. Maybe sheýd feel better. Maybe not. But she had a meeting at eight, and needed to sandwich in a little exercise, then a little breakfast, before she headed to the police station.

The sand on the bay beach was coarser than that on the ocean side, and allowed a more solid footing. She walked briskly, sidestepping the spiny helmets of the dead and dying horseshoe crabs that had washed up onshore overnight and had been unable to crawl back before the tide went out. When she reached the inlet, she paused long enough to watch a few large power boatsýcharters, mostlyýas they set out to sea with their passengers, sport fishermen who had paid for the privilege of casting their lines into the Atlantic with hopes of snagging a few feisty blues before the sun set later that day.