Mystery
![Simone St. James - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B005L53NZS.jpg)
The Book of Cold Cases
A Most Anticipated Novel by PopSugar * Crime Reads * Goodreads *
A true crime blogger gets more than she bargained for while interviewing the woman acquitted of two cold case slayings in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel.
In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect-a rich, eccentric twenty-three-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.
Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist, but by night, she runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases-a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea's surprise, Beth says yes.
They meet regularly at Beth's mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Items move when she's not looking, and she could swear she's seen a girl outside the window. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn't right. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?
A true crime blogger gets more than she bargained for while interviewing the woman acquitted of two cold case slayings in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel.
In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect-a rich, eccentric twenty-three-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.
Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist, but by night, she runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases-a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea's surprise, Beth says yes.
They meet regularly at Beth's mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Items move when she's not looking, and she could swear she's seen a girl outside the window. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn't right. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?
Editorial Reviews
"Lovers of true crime will get a kick out of this thriller that oozes atmosphere."
--Silvia Moreno-Garcia, New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night
"Simone St. James knows how to haunt you. The Book of Cold Cases is St. James at the top of her game,expertly weaving the past and the present to reveal a chilling tapestry of real world mystery and supernatural suspense that will have you turning pages well past your bedtime and jumping at every little sound."
--Jennifer McMahon, New York Times bestselling author of The Drowning Kind
"No one writes a ghost story like Simone St. James, whose uniquely spooky thrillers are as chilling as they are captivating,and The Book of Cold Cases is St. James at her best.Steeped in atmosphere and spine-tingling chills, this gripping mystery will haunt you from the very beginning."
--Laura McHugh, award-winning author of What's Done in Darkness
"This modern Gothic triumph is a cross between your most bingeworthy true crime podcast and The Haunting of Hill House. It's compulsively readable...but don't read it at night. The hauntings in this story scared me, and I write this stuff for a living."
--Wendy Webb, author of The Keepers of Metsan Valo
"Prepare to lose some sleep when you dive into The Book of Cold Cases...[A] creepy thriller."
--Pop Sugar
"You will sink into this novel faster than you would a peat bog."
--Crime Reads
"[A] chilling paranormal thriller...St. James keeps the suspense high."
--Publishers Weekly
--Silvia Moreno-Garcia, New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night
"Simone St. James knows how to haunt you. The Book of Cold Cases is St. James at the top of her game,expertly weaving the past and the present to reveal a chilling tapestry of real world mystery and supernatural suspense that will have you turning pages well past your bedtime and jumping at every little sound."
--Jennifer McMahon, New York Times bestselling author of The Drowning Kind
"No one writes a ghost story like Simone St. James, whose uniquely spooky thrillers are as chilling as they are captivating,and The Book of Cold Cases is St. James at her best.Steeped in atmosphere and spine-tingling chills, this gripping mystery will haunt you from the very beginning."
--Laura McHugh, award-winning author of What's Done in Darkness
"This modern Gothic triumph is a cross between your most bingeworthy true crime podcast and The Haunting of Hill House. It's compulsively readable...but don't read it at night. The hauntings in this story scared me, and I write this stuff for a living."
--Wendy Webb, author of The Keepers of Metsan Valo
"Prepare to lose some sleep when you dive into The Book of Cold Cases...[A] creepy thriller."
--Pop Sugar
"You will sink into this novel faster than you would a peat bog."
--Crime Reads
"[A] chilling paranormal thriller...St. James keeps the suspense high."
--Publishers Weekly
Readers Top Reviews
Kindle L. Salmon
I loved this book! I waited for almost a year, had it on pre-order months ago. It was absolutely worth it. St.James is a master at crafting a nerve shredding mystery wrapped in Gothic horror. Be prepared to abscond from all of your daily responsibilities, as once started you can't stop reading until it's over!
Kindle Kindle L
Another fantastic book, well worth the wait. Spooky, think Hill House spooky. Characters are well presented and the back and forth between times isn't distracting. Only complaint is I have yet figured out how not to finish too soon!
Ann RauschKindle
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. So far, this is my favorite of all Ms. St. James' books but I look forward to many more to come.
Gina EvansAnn Rau
The Book of Cold Cases is the best Simone St. James book I've read to date, although The Sundown Motel is a close second. The complex characters and atmospheric setting are as intriguing as the fresh plot. This book explores the nuances of human responses to trauma, including fear, guilt, and learning to trust ourselves again. It also invites the reader to examine whether evil is innate or learned, nature vs. nurture. Readers of mysteries with a supernatural element and true crime aficionados will enjoy this excellent story. Shea, a part-time true crime blogger, gets the opportunity to interview a woman, Beth, accused of being a serial killer but acquitted at trial in the 1970s. The crimes remain unsolved and Shea can't refuse the chance to explore, and possibly solve, the crime. But she learns a lot more about than she bargains for about herself, human nature, and literal ghosts of terrible memories that just won't die.
Kindle Gina Evan
I absolutely loved this 4.5 Star novel! It had all the elements I love in a thriller. SUMMARY Shea had a traumatic childhood experience which left her with quite a few quirks and hang ups. She is recently divorced and is working as a receptionist at a drs office. In her spare time she works on her true crime blog. She has become immersed in an Infamous case which took place in her small Oregon town forty years ago. One day, Beth, the woman who that case centered around comes into her drs office. Shea decides to make a bold move and approach Beth to ask for an interview. To Shea’s surprise, Beth, who has not spoke publicly about the case, agrees to an interview. This interview changes both Beth and Shea’s lives forever. Shea finds out WAY more about the case than she ever thought possible. WHAT I LOVED This book has everything I LOVE in a thriller! It had: A fascinating plot Unexpected twists and turns Interesting characters with “pasts” A couple small subplots that help develop the characters A dark setting Some very dark secrets AND, my favorite part, a potential haunting (!) WHAT I DIDN’T LOVE There wasn’t much to not love. I really can’t think of any specific things. OVERALL I absolutely love this book and recommend it to all my GR friends who love a good spooky thriller.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter One
Claire Lake, Oregon
The Greer mansion sat high on a hill, overlooking the town and the ocean. To get to it from downtown, you had to leave the pretty shops and the creaking seaside piers and drive a road that wound upward, toward the cliffs. You passed the heart of Claire Lake, the part of town where the locals lived and the tourists didn't usually go. You passed a grid of shops and low apartment blocks, local diners and hair salons. On the outskirts of town, you passed newer developments, built between the foot of the cliffs and the flat land on the edge of the inland lake that gave the town its name.
The land was too wet and rocky to keep building, so the newer developments tapered off into woods and two-lane roads. Along the west edge of the lake were homes built in the seventies, squat shapes in brown brick and cream siding, the gardens neatly kept for over forty years by people who had never moved away. Past those houses, around the other edges of the lake, there was nothing but back roads, used only by hikers, hunters, fishermen, and teenage kids looking for trouble. In the seventies, the houses along the lake were for the up-and-coming ones, the people with good jobs. Everyone else lived in town. And if you were rich, you lived on the hill.
The road climbed on the north side of the lake. The houses were set far apart here for privacy, and the roads were kept narrow and uneven, as if trying to keep outsiders away. The wealthy had come to Claire Lake in the twenties, when the town was first created, looking for a place that was scenic, secluded, and cheap to build big houses. They brought their money from Portland and California and settled in. Some of the houses sat empty after the stock market crash, but they filled up again during the boom after World War II. The people who lived here called the neighborhood Arlen Heights.
The Greer mansion was one of the original houses in Arlen Heights. It was an ugly Frankenstein of a house even when it was built-a pseudo-Victorian style of slanted roofs and spires, though the walls were of butter yellow brick. And when Julian Greer bought it in 1950 with his newly inherited pharmaceutical fortune, he made it worse. He remodeled the lower floor to be more modern, with straight lines and dark brown wood. He also put in a bank of windows along the back wall to open up the house's dark, gloomy interior. The windows looked out to the house's back lawn and its drop-off to the ocean beyond.
The effect was supposed to be sweeping, breathtaking, but like most of Julian's life, it didn't work out as planned. The windows fogged, and the view was bleak. The lawn was flat and dead, and the ocean beyond the cliff was choppy and cold. Julian had done the renovations in hopes of pleasing his new wife, Mariana, but instead the relentless view from the windows unsettled her, and she kept the curtains closed. She decorated the rest of the house dutifully but listlessly, which was a harbinger of their marriage. Something about the Greer mansion stifled laughter and killed happiness. It might sound dramatic, but anyone who had lived there knew it was true.
By 1975, both Julian and Mariana were dead, Julian with his blood all over the kitchen floor, Mariana in the twisted wreck of a car crash. The house watched all of it happen, indifferent.
Tonight it was raining, a cold, hard downpour that came in from the ocean. Arlen Heights was quiet, and the Greer mansion was dark. The rain spattered hard on the panes of glass, tracing lines down the large windows overlooking the lawn. The dark skeletons of the trees on either side of the house bowed back and forth in the wind, the branches scraping the roof. Drops pocked the empty driveway. The house was still and silent, stoic under the wind and the water.
On the lawn, something moved across the surface of the grass. The touch of a footprint. Inside the house, one of the cupboard doors opened in the dark kitchen, groaning softly into the silence.
In a bedroom window a shape appeared, shadowy and indistinct. The blur, perhaps, of a face. A handprint touched the bedroom window, the palm pressing into the glass. For a second, it was there, pale and white, though there was no one to see.
The wind groaned in the eaves. The handprint faded. The figure moved back into the darkness. And the house was still once more.
Chapter Two
September 2017
Shea
The day before I met Beth Greer was a Tuesday, with a gray sky overhead and a thin drizzle that wet my face and beaded in my hair as I waited at the bu...
Claire Lake, Oregon
The Greer mansion sat high on a hill, overlooking the town and the ocean. To get to it from downtown, you had to leave the pretty shops and the creaking seaside piers and drive a road that wound upward, toward the cliffs. You passed the heart of Claire Lake, the part of town where the locals lived and the tourists didn't usually go. You passed a grid of shops and low apartment blocks, local diners and hair salons. On the outskirts of town, you passed newer developments, built between the foot of the cliffs and the flat land on the edge of the inland lake that gave the town its name.
The land was too wet and rocky to keep building, so the newer developments tapered off into woods and two-lane roads. Along the west edge of the lake were homes built in the seventies, squat shapes in brown brick and cream siding, the gardens neatly kept for over forty years by people who had never moved away. Past those houses, around the other edges of the lake, there was nothing but back roads, used only by hikers, hunters, fishermen, and teenage kids looking for trouble. In the seventies, the houses along the lake were for the up-and-coming ones, the people with good jobs. Everyone else lived in town. And if you were rich, you lived on the hill.
The road climbed on the north side of the lake. The houses were set far apart here for privacy, and the roads were kept narrow and uneven, as if trying to keep outsiders away. The wealthy had come to Claire Lake in the twenties, when the town was first created, looking for a place that was scenic, secluded, and cheap to build big houses. They brought their money from Portland and California and settled in. Some of the houses sat empty after the stock market crash, but they filled up again during the boom after World War II. The people who lived here called the neighborhood Arlen Heights.
The Greer mansion was one of the original houses in Arlen Heights. It was an ugly Frankenstein of a house even when it was built-a pseudo-Victorian style of slanted roofs and spires, though the walls were of butter yellow brick. And when Julian Greer bought it in 1950 with his newly inherited pharmaceutical fortune, he made it worse. He remodeled the lower floor to be more modern, with straight lines and dark brown wood. He also put in a bank of windows along the back wall to open up the house's dark, gloomy interior. The windows looked out to the house's back lawn and its drop-off to the ocean beyond.
The effect was supposed to be sweeping, breathtaking, but like most of Julian's life, it didn't work out as planned. The windows fogged, and the view was bleak. The lawn was flat and dead, and the ocean beyond the cliff was choppy and cold. Julian had done the renovations in hopes of pleasing his new wife, Mariana, but instead the relentless view from the windows unsettled her, and she kept the curtains closed. She decorated the rest of the house dutifully but listlessly, which was a harbinger of their marriage. Something about the Greer mansion stifled laughter and killed happiness. It might sound dramatic, but anyone who had lived there knew it was true.
By 1975, both Julian and Mariana were dead, Julian with his blood all over the kitchen floor, Mariana in the twisted wreck of a car crash. The house watched all of it happen, indifferent.
Tonight it was raining, a cold, hard downpour that came in from the ocean. Arlen Heights was quiet, and the Greer mansion was dark. The rain spattered hard on the panes of glass, tracing lines down the large windows overlooking the lawn. The dark skeletons of the trees on either side of the house bowed back and forth in the wind, the branches scraping the roof. Drops pocked the empty driveway. The house was still and silent, stoic under the wind and the water.
On the lawn, something moved across the surface of the grass. The touch of a footprint. Inside the house, one of the cupboard doors opened in the dark kitchen, groaning softly into the silence.
In a bedroom window a shape appeared, shadowy and indistinct. The blur, perhaps, of a face. A handprint touched the bedroom window, the palm pressing into the glass. For a second, it was there, pale and white, though there was no one to see.
The wind groaned in the eaves. The handprint faded. The figure moved back into the darkness. And the house was still once more.
Chapter Two
September 2017
Shea
The day before I met Beth Greer was a Tuesday, with a gray sky overhead and a thin drizzle that wet my face and beaded in my hair as I waited at the bu...
