The Book Of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

 

Shea lives a buttoned down life.  She was traumatized as a child by an attempted abduction which she managed to escape.  The man involved went on to commit a murder and has been in jail for nineteen years.  But he's now up for parole which sends Shea into a dark place.  She works as a receptionist in a doctor's office and is divorced after a short marriage.  She leaves as little a footprint on the world as she can. 

At night Shea comes alive.  She runs a website called The Book of Cold Cases which is a true crime website about all the murders that didn't get solved.  Shea investigates cases, writes articles and communicates with the other participants.  It's the one place she comes alive.  The case that still intrigues her happened in her own town, The Lady Killer murders.  Two men where shot and left by the side of the road with notes.  When the bullets from those murders matches an older crime that had been written off as a foiled burglary, suspicion falls on Beth Taylor, the daughter of the man shot in his kitchen.

Beth is nineteen, a rich, sultry heiress.  She refuses to act scared or cowed by the police or the press.  She is immediately labeled as a coldhearted woman capable of anything.  Beth is arrested and brought to trial after a witness says he saw her near the scene of the last murder but is acquitted.  Ever since then she has lived by herself in the mansion that is squarely in the town's wealthy section.  

Shea is shocked when Beth comes into the practice one day.  She follows her when she leaves and asks her for an interview.  To her surprise, Beth agrees.  Shea interviews her, the policeman involved who never believed Beth was guilty and Beth's lawyer.  While Shea starts to believe Beth was innocent, she is appalled by the state of her house and the mysterious events that happen there.  This could be her biggest case ever.

Simone St. James has carved out an interesting niche in the psychological thriller genre so popular today.  Her books are thrilling mysteries but also all have some supernatural events going on so that the solution comes from both logic and intuition.  Shea and Beth are both women whose early life has dictated their unwillingness to participate fully in life but has instead left them wary of others and the sudden events that can change a life.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.