The prologue to Robert Dugoni’s murder mystery that is just out this week, A Cold Trail, begins in Cedar Grove, Washington in 1993. “Heather Johansen wiped her tears and the driving rain that blurred her vision and ran down her face.” By the end of the prologue, she is dead from a blow to the head. (The book also has an epilogue, and I am fond of both.)
The first chapter picks up in the present day with homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite returning home to Cedar Grove on maternity leave from the Seattle Police Department’s Violent Crimes Section. Naturally, a new case occurs while she is home, and the local police department asks for her help. That case leads back to her past and memories of her friend Heather’s death and her sister Sarah’s disappearance. Likely suspects abound and danger looms for Tracy as she comes closer to finding the solution to the current murder and perhaps to her friend Heather’s long ago murder.
In the meantime, her lawyer husband represents Larry Kaufman, a merchant from a historical family business, who is declining to sell out to the city’s revitalization project. Soon the couple’s work begins to intertwine. Is there a connection between the conspiracy of the downtown project and the murders?
This book is one of a series, but the first that I had read. Robert Dugoni cleverly folds in information needed from previous books in a way that has lead me to add the earlier books to my ever-growing list of books I’d like to read.
This book will not edify or inspire you in any way, but if you happen to be looking for a good read under a warm afghan on a cold rainy day, it would be a perfect fit.