Cold Truth »

Mariah Stewart is the award-winning author of the Last series: Last Look, Last Words, and Last Breath; the Truth series: Cold Truth, Hard Truth, Dark Truth, and Final Truth; and the Dead series: Dead Even, Dead Wrong, Dead Certain, and Dead End; as well as Until Dark and The President's Daughter. She is the recipient of both the Golden Leaf Award and the Award of Excellence presented by the Colorado Romance Writers, and has been a finalist for the Holt Medallion.

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.

In matters of crime, there are many versions of the truth.

Publishers Weekly

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.