A resourceful young preservationist contacts the Miami Police Department’s Cold Case Squad to help block a developer’s plan to bulldoze the Shadows – an historic 1920s house steeped in tragedy and intrigue. It was built during Prohibition by a notorious rum-runner and inherited by his son, who was killed there during a shotgun ambush. His murder was never solved. Lieutenant K. C. Riley and her detectives go back to the scene to see if they can uncover any new leads about the forty-year-old crime before they are lost forever. But a foray into the limestone cellar reveals far more than a few lost and abandoned clues.
The investigation is reopened and the murdered man’s widow and grown-up children are interviewed for answers. But all are evasive and paranoid, haunted by lies, guilt, and tangled pasts that each recalls differently. The unravelling of the secrets of the house and its occupants uncovers a still violent and long-hidden connection between the activities at the Shadows and the murder of Cold Case Squad Detective Sam Stone’s parents more than thirty years ago. The truth, quite literally, is hidden in the Shadows.
Edna Buchanan is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and it shows. Shadows is written with a surety of style and language that reflects both the historical mystery of the house and the intricacies of a police procedural. There are a number of stories in this book and all are woven skilfully together in a way that engrosses the reader in each individual’s personal search for the truth. Highly recommended.
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Ruth Wade
Edna Buchanan has written fourteen other books. Her Britt Montero series includes: The Ice Maiden; Garde of Evil; Act of Betrayal; Margin of Error; and You Only Die Twice. Amongst her stand-alone mysteries are: Pulse; Never Let Them See You Cry; and The Corpse Had a Familiar Face. Her first book to feature Lieutenant K. C. Riley and her detectives was Cold Case Squad.
Squad.