Reviewed on my blog under the title The One with the Cold Case Cold Beauty

This review will go live on my website on Monday July 24, 2017 @ 8:37am PST (https://theartisanpenguin.com/book-reviews/2017/cold-day-in-hell)

There is something about a well written police procedural story that I always enjoy, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Cold Day in Hell.  Written by retired police officer, Lissa Marie Redmond, A Cold Day in Hell has a very authentic feel to it, as you would hope it to have if written by a former police officer. 

Lauren Riley is a detective at the top of her game, solving crimes in the Cold Case Investigations of the Buffalo Police Department.  Single mother of two, who's girls have gone off to college, Lauren finds that she has a bit too much time on her hands.  Frank Violanti, slick defence attorney, who's questionable clients and theatrical behaviour in court make him one of the best.  When Franks's eighteen year-old client, David, is arrested for murder he begs Lauren to take the case on as a private investigator.  Normally on opposite sides of the bench, Lauren and Frank don't generally see eye to eye, but upon meeting David, Lauren can't help but feel she needs to prove his innocence.  Unravelling the conflicting evidence, Lauren discovers that nothing is quite as it seems.  With an abusive ex stalking her and the press all over the case, Lauren puts here career in danger as doubt starts to plague her motives.

I have to say that with a lot of police procedural's, I usually have a pretty good guess who-done-it before the big reveal.  I may not always be right, but I have my suspicions.  That is half the fun of reading these, to see if you can pick out the clues the author has given.  When reading A Cold Day in Hell, the clues were there, but I was never able to make up my mind, until the reveal happened.  I also enjoyed the fact that while there was the big investigation to prove David's innocence, Lauren was still working her day job in the cold case department.  TV is often very sensationalized with great intuitive leaps, but reading this book dispelled a lot of what you see on TV and explained that solving crimes is a lot of hard and diligent work and a fair amount of luck, especially in the cold case department.  

While I enjoyed reading A Cold Day in Hell and was interested in the story developing and what was going to happen, for me, I was easily able to put this book down at night and I didn't find myself with the urgent need to read the book as fast as possible, until the last 2% of the book.  Redmond has done an excellent job with a hook at the end that makes you want to pick up her next book ASAP.  Now she just needs to write it.

I am enjoying discovering new authors at the moment. This is a police procedural written by a retired police officer. The main character works as a cold case detective. She has also taken on a private investigator role for a murder case.
On a personal level our main character has two daughters and two ex husbands and an ex fiancé. I enjoyed the way her personal life was developed. I hope this is the start of a series. Well done!

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley. WOW I am the first person to review this one on GR. HOW exciting! I really liked this book. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down until I finished it. I had my suspicions about how the story would end but I wasn't 100% sure until I got to the last page. Lauren is a Police Detective in the Cold Case Unit in Buffalo, NY and she is also a private investigator on the side. A defense attorney whom she hates asks her to investigate a murder in which his godson has been accused of. Lauren is a very strong character, single mother, smart, pretty and dedicated to her job. The story is complicated by her ex-fiance (who is nasty and used to hit her) being the arresting cop in the murder. The characters are interesting and intertwined in many different ways which makes the story really intriguing. The accused David seems like a just a super nice high school kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time...I do not want to spoil the book for anyone but I was pretty surprised about the ending. And happy to see that there will be a sequel. Definitely worth reading! Suspenseful, great writing, interesting characters and story too. Loved it!

Great book. Brilliant plot and main characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Very enjoyable.