Other editions of book Cold Case

Best-selling author Linda Barnes' witty private eye, Carlotta Carlyle, approaches challenging assignments in proper Boston with savvy and compassion. In Cold Case, a decades-old missing person case turns red-hot, threatening Carlotta's composure and a Massachusetts political race. A mysterious client comes to Carlotta secretly with a wild tale: He has obtained parts of a recently written novel by Thea Janis, the literary sensation who disappeared 24 years ago. As soon as Carlotta begins to hunt for the author, her client calls off the search. But she accidentally discovers Thea's grave in a nearby cemetery - unearthing a tangle of lies and scandal that Boston's most prominent citizens will do anything to suppress. With her Edgar Award-winning talents, Linda Barnes creates suspenseful mysteries packed with well-crafted plot twists and stunning surprise endings. Narrator C.J. Critt perfectly voices blue-blooded socialites as well as quirky folk from the seamier side of town.

Hired to find a missing novelist, Boston private investigator Carlotta Carlyle gets tangled up in a cutthroat political campaign Six-foot-tall, redheaded ex-cop and Boston-based private eye Carlotta Carlyle is “the genuine article: a straightforward, funny, thoroughly American mystery heroine” (New York Post). Thea Janis was a literary Mozart. She published her first novel at age fourteen, shocking the upper crust of Boston with her frank depiction of blue-blooded indiscretions, and she seemed to have a magnificent career ahead of her. But before Thea could publish her follow-up novel, she mysteriously disappeared and was eventually named as a victim of a serial killer. Twenty-four years later, an admirer of Thea’s comes to Carlotta claiming to have evidence that Thea is alive—and still writing. He begs Carlotta to find the onetime prodigy, but there are powerful people, including Thea’s prominent family of Boston politicians, who want Thea’s second book to stay buried. As a take-no-prisoners gubernatorial race speeds to its climax, Carlotta discovers a secret that could upend the campaign, endanger people’s lives, and rewrite literary history.Cold Case is the 7th book in the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Twenty-four years ago, teen prodigy Thea Janis vanished from her upper crust Boston prep school. At first called a runaway, she's later named among the victims of a serial killer, a man doing life in Walpole Prison. Then a new manuscript appears in her family's mailbox. The words cry out from the printed pages, Thea's voice unmistakable even a quarter century since the girl's mysterious disappearance. A new client bearing a dead man's name turns up in the office of P.I. Carlotta Carlyle, looking for her help in finding whoever is sending the book―even if it turns out to be Thea herself. The investigation leads Carlotta to a prominent Boston family with deep connections and even deeper pockets, and which badly wants the tragic past to stay buried. But after a hit man tries to write his own ending to the saga, the cold case suddenly goes white hot―and Carlotta may be the one who ends up getting burned.

A case almost a quarter of a century cold turns red hot again when Linda Barnes's detective and part-time cabby, Carlotta Carlyle, gets ensnared in the hunt for the source of a manuscript in the unmistakable voice of Thea Janis, the young literary sensation who disappeared twenty-four years ago at the height of her fame. Now, pages from an inflammatory new manuscript are appearing, written in a voice that could be none other than Thea's. But a madman sits in a Massachusetts state prison, convicted of her murder. The "Cold Case" squad of the Boston Police won't touch this one--they want to keep it irrevocably closed. Thea's brother, a dashing politician, is in the middle of a hotly contested gubernatorial race and has other problems, with a fiery young wife and a reputation for ruthlessness. Thea's older sister has withdrawn into her own oblivion. And her aristocratic mother finds her refuge in a bottle. Who wrote the new manuscript? Who is sending it piecemeal to Thea's family, demanding chapter-by-chapter blackmail? Who is playing games with Carlotta with every loaded word? Is Thea alive or dead? Is the author a victim, a plagiarist*or a killer? Carlotta Carlyle confronts demons from the past and from the present as she peels back layer upon layer of a glittering family's dark secrets in Cold Case, her toughest and most intriguing assignment yet.

Cold hearts....Boston at night ebbs and flows with shadows of things deadly: A hit man with a gun...a new client with old money telling lies in P.I. Carlotta Carlyle's office...the searing truth behind the long-ago disappearance of a brilliant young writer.Cold blood....Thea Janis vanished twenty-four years ago, but her cold case steals into Carlotta's life like an illicit lover. The new manuscript pages a sad-eyed man lays on Carlotta's desk are mesmerizing, written in Thea's unmistakable voice, and the story he tells draws Carlotta in as surely as the notes of a haunting blues riff just beyond her grasp.Cold case....Is Thea alive or dead? Who is sending the new manuscript piecemeal to Thea's family, demanding chapter-by-chapter blackmail? Is the author a victim, a plagiarist...or a killer? In Carlotta's business, blind spots lead to blind sides-and looking over her shoulder can keep her from seeing where she's going...into a past as dark and evil as they come, where old secrets turn lethal and the words of a poet can kill.

A case almost a quarter of a century cold turns red-hot again when Linda Barnes's detective and part-time cabbie, Carlotta Carlyle, gets ensnared in the hunt for the source of a manuscript in the unmistakable voice of Thea Janis, the stunning literary sensation who disappeared twenty-four years ago at the height of her fame.Thea was fifteen when she vanished, after Nightmare's Dawn, her brilliant debut novel, propelled her and her prominent Boston family into the painful glare of the spotlight society reserves for genius. Now pages from an inflammatory new manuscript are appearing, written in a voice that could be none other than Thea's. But a madman sits in a Massachusetts state prison, convicted of her murder. The "cold case" squad of the Boston police, specializing in old unsolved mysteries, won't touch this one--they want to keep it irrevocably closed. Thea's brother, a dashing politician, is in the middle of a hotly contested gubernatorial race and has other problems, with a fiery young wife and a reputation for ruthlessness. Thea's older sister has withdrawn into her own oblivion. And her aristocratic mother finds her refuge in a bottle.Who wrote the new manuscript? Who is sending it piecemeal to Thea's family, demanding chapter-by-chapter blackmail? Who is playing games with Carlotta with every loaded word? Is Thea alive or dead? Is the author a victim, a plagiarist. . . or a killer? Carlotta Carlyle confronts demons from the past and from the present as she peels back layer upon layer of a glittering family's dark secrets in Cold Case, her toughest and most intriguing assignment yet.