A Cold Trail (Tracy Crosswhite #7) by Robert Dugoni
Thomas & Mercer, 2020
ISBN-10: 1542093228
ISBN-13: 9781542093224
Available: Paperback, ebook edition, audiobook
Cedar Grove, Washington, was a small town that never changed, where everyone knew everyone else’s business. Homicide Detective Tracy Crosswhite had grown up there and thought she had put it behind her. When Tracy and her husband had a baby, though, she wanted her baby daughter to know where Tracy came from, so while their main home was being gutted and refurbished, she and her husband moved back to her childhood home.
After years of never changing, the small town was seeing a tremendous rebirth. The family-owned stores she grew up with had changed hands and were undergoing renovation. Prosperity was not without its perils, though. One of the local business owners was suing the town for unfair business tactics, and her husband, Dan, was their lawyer. Tracy reconnected with the local acting sheriff, Roy Calloway, while he temporarily came out of retirement to cover for the current Sheriff. A recent house fire turned out to be arson, and the only fatality, Kimberly Armstrong, the current Sheriff’s wife, had been murdered. Kimberly, a local reporter, was writing a book about a long-cold murder case from 1993 of a local woman, Heather Johansen. Sheriff Calloway has a hunch that somehow, the two cases were connected, and he could use some outside help. Tracy was it.
A Cold Trail is a procedural crime thriller that started slow but delivered with a powerful punch at the end. It began like the small town it depicts. Slow and unchanging. Until it changed. The author did a great job laying his framework. At first, it felt like a sleepy little town that happened to have had a couple of murders there. Mix in greedy land developers that were being excessively secretive, and stir. The plot worked well for me as it developed gradually, building suspense slowly much as a real crime investigation would. The story really came together in the last third. The questions disappeared as the suspense built. The ending was a fun twist. The characters were believable as law enforcement types that were slow and methodical. They worked well together, and it felt like I was watching an actual family work through the issues of two overlapping investigations. The detailed descriptions of police procedures and legal proceedings lent an air of authenticity to the work. This isn’t my kind of story, but it felt right. The descriptions were good, giving me enough to picture the scenes. The only thing that didn’t work for me was occasionally the author used an odd turn of phrase that just didn’t fit. It’s interesting how word order makes or breaks a sentence. In the end, this was a good book worth reading. Recommended for adult readers.
Contains: Violence, Adult situations.
Reviewed by Aaron Fletcher
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