Simone St. James: The Book of Cold Cases

Simone St. James shows that secrets in a small town will always haunt you:

1977, the town of Claire Lake, Oregon, is shaken by the murder of two random men and the only clue is a witness sees a women fleeing the scene. The murderer is coined the Lady Killer. In 1977, Beth Greer not only fit the description of the suspect but was an eccentric and rich 23 old women, and the community was shocked when she was acquitted. Beth became a recluse after that. Now in 2017 Shae Collins is a receptionist by day and the authors of The Book of a old Cases by night, her true passion. On a chance meeting Shae asks Beth if she can interview her about the Lady Killer case and shockingly Beth agrees. Shae thinks this is a chance of a lifetime but there is something off about Beth and the house she lives in and Shae cannot help feel if she is being manipulated by a master and that darkness is coming. 

I enjoyed this book and really like St. Jame’s writing style and format but I think I would have enjoyed it more if the paranormal/ghost aspect would have been intilized more. I actually did not realize that this book was going to have a paranormal aspect till I was reading it. 

The serial killer aspect and overall mystery aspect was interesting and well done but I was able to figure the big twist about halfway through the book and there weren’t a lot of twists and turns along the way to change my mind. But I still enjoyed how it all played out. Plus this book takes place in a small town, rich family with secrets, I’m a sucker for this setting.

I like the overal concept of the book, with our main character Shae having a crime blog (The Book of Cold Cases) where she delves into crimes that Have remained cold finding as much information as she can as well as having debates with people who follow her site. I feel like this is very Now, with the amount of pod casts and sites dedicated to this very concept and this is not the first book I have read that has used this concept. There is something about the armchair investigators that is appearing more and more in books.

I found that Beth was the more interesting of the two characters, this is not to say Shae was interesting (her past is very tragic) just Beth’s POV was more dynamic and St. James really used her POV to show the crimes of the past as well as what everyone thought of her then and now.

This was a good book and the first I have read by St. James and I look forward to reading her other works as I do like her style.

Enjoy!!!

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