Book Description:
Her heart stutters as she draws closer. A woman’s fingertips curl over the boat’s edge. Dark crimson blood clashes with the faded blue peeling paint beneath. They’re too late, the beautiful woman within has been dead for some time…
Detective Josie Quinn lifts the baby from the pram, holding her close and gently soothing her. Josie scours the scene for the sweet little girl’s mother, but the park is deserted. Glancing down, something catches her eye. Nestled amongst the child’s soft pink blankets is a polaroid photo, the corner smudged with blood.
The search for Cleo Tate has Josie and her team in a chokehold; the abandoned newborn needs her mother, and every second counts now lab results show the blood belongs to her. The blurred photo of a body of water is Josie’s only lead. But what does it mean? And where was it taken? The answer is just within reach, but with Cleo’s husband lying about his movements that day, Josie can’t see it. Then it finally clicks: Cold Heart Creek, a crime scene from Josie’s past that she will never forget. Josie is terrified by what she finds there: Cleo’s body, cold as ice, with a second photo of a new location.
A twisted killer is playing a devilish game. And when Josie finds a second innocent victim at the site of a different case she solved, she begins to suspect that she herself is at the very heart of it. But why? As more bodies and more photos follow, Josie must dig deep into the secrets and mistakes of her past to get one step ahead.
The link between these women is key to cracking the case. Someone wants revenge, and won’t stop until their story is told, and no one involved is left breathing. Can Josie stop them before any more precious lives are taken? And just what will it cost her?
All hail Lisa Regan, queen of the detective thriller! If y’all have followed the blog for any length of time, you know how much I love her books (go see all my reviews here). Here we see Detective Josie Quinn facing one of her most challenging cases yet. We also get to learn a little more of her history.
The story opens with a flashback to Josie’s rookie days. She wasn’t always the powerhouse we know and love, and we see her starting out, learning, facing the challenges of police work. This just makes her even more human and relatable to me.
The action in the present day starts when Josie is called to a park where a baby has been left, apparently abandoned, in a stroller. No parents to be seen, just a polaroid picture that raises more questions than it answers. Blood smears on the photo are identified as matching that of the mother, Cleo Tate. Her husband Remy is top of the suspect list because he isn’t being straight with the police about where he was when Cleo disappeared. But what is that polaroid picture supposed to mean? The race is on to find Cleo, and once Josie realizes that the picture shows the site of a previous case she was involved with, the race is on to get a step ahead of the killer before anyone else dies.
Book number twenty-one. That’s quite an accomplishment. That’s a lot of writing. Could you blame Lisa Regan if she rested on her laurels and just started phoning them in? Well, let me tell you, she absolutely does NOT do that. Y’all know I love me some Josie Quinn books, and they just keep on getting better. I loved how Regan brought us back to revisit some old cases and tied all those in to the current one. I could think along with Josie and the team as they tried to figure out where the photographed locations were and then go, oh, yeah, I remember that one! So much fun.
And y’all remember Kyle Turner, the detective hired to fill the hole left when Mettner died (we aren’t even going to talk about how I’m still not emotionally over that). He has been a jerk since he was introduced, the guy everybody loves to hate. I got a kick out of the swear jars they each had, and how they had to chip in some money every time they insulted each other. Well, in this story, we start to see a few cracks in Turner’s douchebag persona. Might he not be the slacker of an investigator Josie has assumed him to be, and might he actually turn out to be a fairly decent human being? Read the book and draw your own conclusions.
There are some good things happening on the personal front, too, both for Josie and Noah and for Josie’s sister Trinity and her sweetie Drake. I always enjoy the bits of her characters’ personal lives that Regan shares with us. I’m adopted myself, so I love that Josie and Noah are going that route! And who doesn’t love a good excuse to celebrate?
There are twists and turns aplenty, as always. The killer is slippery and doesn’t make the detectives’ work easy. And the big reveal wasn’t obvious until it bopped me upside the head. If you love a good police procedural/thriller, and you haven’t yet read all the Josie Quinn books, get to reading! You can read this as a stand-alone, but you’ll be missing a lot of background info and context. It will be much, much more enjoyable if you just start with the first book and read them all. Well worth the time you’ll invest, I promise!
Disclaimer: I received an advance copy from Bookouture and NetGalley. All opinions here are mine, and I don’t say nice things about books I don’t actually like.
About the author:
Lisa Regan is the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Detective Josie Quinn series. Lisa is a member of Sisters In Crime, International Thriller Writers, and Mystery Writers of America. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Master of Education Degree from Bloomsburg University. She lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the U.S. with her husband, daughter, and Boston Terrier named Mr. Phillip. Find out more at her website: www.lisaregan.com
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Great review, Lisa! I like the cover of the book as well.