#the book of cold cases

[deaneverafter]

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

Katheryn Winnick starring as Shea Collins and Jensen Ackles starring as Michael De Vos

(fan art/poster and character posters)

Filling the "Front Page News" square for the @jacklesversebingo!

Image credits: x, x, x, x

[wanderrealms]

Ghost testing door handles my beloved.

[musicalangel12]

My Books of 2023 - May 16

1. Circus of Wonder by Elizabeth Macneal - historical fiction

2. The Space Between by Dete Meserve - mystery/romance

3. Clover Blue by Eldonna Edwards - historical fiction/coming of age

4. The Duchess by Wendy Holden - historical fiction/historical romance

5. The Last Piece by Imogen Clark - contemporary

6. Sisters of the Resistance by Christine Wells - historical fiction/romance

7. The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

From Goodreads:

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?

[litcest]

The Book of Cold Cases, by Simone St. James

A while back I reblogged a post that said "guy who only thinks about incest seeing anything else: getting a lot of incest vibes from this…". This me. I'm guy.

There was I reading the latest thriller I had bought, The Book of Cold Cases, which follows a true crime blogger (I'm a huge true crime fan) as she tries to solve a two murders that had happened years before in her home town. The novel, written by Simone St. James and published in 2022, turned out not to be what I expected (spoiler: there's a ghost who haunts it's killer), but as I read, I couldn't stop getting those ~incest vibes~ from Beth and her half-sister. So I decided to post about the book!

Like I mentioned, the story centers around Shea, but I'll put her on the backburned for this post. Instead, I'll take you to to November 1960, when the young Beth Greer, deuteragonist of The Book of Cold Cases but protagonist in my post, was only six years old.

Beth came from a rich family, daughter of Mariana and Julian Greer, and, other than familiar love, she had everything she wished for. Lonely in her big house, one day at night she hears a noise outside and when she goes to spy on it, there are footprints in the lawn and, in the frosty windows, carefully written in block letters, there's a message: I WAS HERE. Underneath it, Beth writes her response: COME IN.

A month pass and around Christmas, Beth receives a surprise, her 'cousin', Lilian has come to visit. Just two years older than Beth herself, Lily was beautiful, with pale blond hair like Mariana's, while Beth had inherited Julian's red hair.

"Beth stared in shock. She didn’t have a cousin Lillian; she didn’t have any cousins at all. Her father was an only child—hence the large inheritance —and her mother had a sister who was dead. Lillian was Beth’s middle name."

Despite not buying the 'cousin' story, Beth doesn't questions her mother, especially when Mariana tells her that Lily will be staying during Christmas break and Beth will "have a little playmate. Two sweet, matching girls". Having no friends at school, Beth latches eagerly at the idea of a friend.

"Beth’s heart was pumping hard in her chest. This was wonderful and terrible at the same time. It was going to be a nightmare, and it was also going to be the best thing that ever happened to her. She knew that already. Her life was starting."

The two begin to play and, upon Beth telling Lily how she was bullied in school, Lily decides she'll teach Beth on how to make others afraid of her, something Lily has already learned. In conversation, Beth also learns that Lily was the one who had been in the lawn a month prior:

"Sometimes I imagine things that aren’t real. But you saw me that night, and I saw you. You told me to come in. [...] And here I am. Now we can be sisters."

Julian, angry at Lily's presence, leaves the house. And then, Mariana, who is an alcoholic, also goes to spend time with friends, leaving Lily and Beth alone in the big manor. The girls play together, watch tv and eat cookies for three days, having the best time ever. When Julian returns, he immediately tells Lily to leave, and she returns to her foster family.

It becomes a routine. Every year, on Christmas, Lily comes to the Greer Manor, Julian (and sometimes Mariana) leaves, and Beth and Lily have all the fun they want to. They girls grow older and Beth starts to eagerly wait for the holidays, since Lily was her only friend ever. When Beth's ten, she finally asks Lily is they are sisters, which Lily confirms: they are half-sisters, through Mariana, with Lily the result of a pre-marital sexual encounter that Mariana had. (Although Lily believes that her conception was due to a rape, the book never clarifies whether that's true or not).

"She needed Lily. Just like she needed Julian and Mariana. Beth had to get through another day, and another year, and she needed all three of them to get there. But she needed Lily most of all."

During the girls' teenage years, Lily teaches Beth what sex is, and how to flirt (even with other girls, as the book makes notice). It's just a brief mention, but fact that Lily teaches Beth to identify sapphic girls and how to manipulate them to her favour had my ~incest senses~ flagging up. Later it'll become more explicit, but Lily has a deep-rooted hatred towards men. I believe Lily to be a lesbian. And whether she was attracted to Beth or not, I think she was trying to gauge Beth's reaction to it.

As Lily starts to age in the foster system, her live becomes harder, and in the Christmas of 1968, she arrives in the Greer household with visible bruises. And while Beth doesn't put it past her sister to fake those injuries, she thinks that they are the result of abuse in the foster house. That year also marks the year of the first of the many tragedies that will surround Beth: the disappearance of David, a groundskeeper. Instinctively, Beth knows Lily had something to do with it, but stays quiet.

In December 1969, Lily tells Beth that "bad things" have happened to the family that was fostering her, and Beth wonders if Lily had been the one to cause the bad things. They talk about their future, and Lily warns Beth that if she does nothing, Beth will end up marrying a rich guy and being as unhappy as Mariana. The girls fight as Lily tells Beth that soon she'll marry and forget her. Beth reassures Lily that it isn't true. This fight sounds so much like a lover's quarrel. In this conversation, Lily also mentions wanting to do something bad, and how women should go on clocktowers.

At the time, Beth thinks nothing of this, but later she learns that Lily had been referring to a mass shooter who had gone up a clocktower and took aim there.

Next year, Lily is not invited to Christmas, having turned 18 and no longer being a 'child in need'. Beth is forced to go to a party, where she meets Gray, the man the quickly learns that her parents wants her to marry. Realising Lily had been right about Beth's future being all set up, Beth panics.

"She wondered if she could find Lily. She could tell Lily this was happening to her . . . And then what? What did she think Lily would do? Swoop in and save her?"

After some searching, Beth finds out where Lily is living now and sends a letter to her sister, begging for help. Lily doesn't responds, but does send letters asking for money, which Beth obliges (unbeknown to Beth, Lily was also blackmailing Julian to send her money). Years later, while talking to Shea, Beth theorizes that Lily had left a trail of bodies whenever she went during those years.

Either way, the sisters don't see each other for three years. Then, in 1973, Julian is found dead in the kitchen. Shot in the face by an intruder. Beth has no doubts: it was Lily. She knew what her sister was capable off and had done nothing to stop her.

With Julian dead, the engagement to Gray falls apart, much to Beth's relief. Lily, desperate for money, tries to blackmail the family's lawyer, but he refuses to pay her out. With no other choice, Lily turns to Mariana.

For a while, Mariana, Lily and Beth live in the Greer manor together. But the three woman are all drunks and Lily and Mariana both take pills too. The result is a chaotic home life, full of fights. By 1975, Lily has left permanently, having found out the identity of her birth father and gone to kill him. One night, Mariana, still filled of remorse for abandoning Lily, tries to go find her, but crashes her car and die. Beth blames herself, for having watched Mariana stumbling out of the house with the car keys on hand and done nothing to stop her mother.

In 1977 Lily returns. She announces her arrival not by a phone call, but by killing a man in town and leaving a note which said: "Am I bitter or am I sweet? Ladies can be either", in reference to a story Mariana had told the girls during some Christmas. In an attempt to stop another killing, Beth starts driving around the down at night, looking for Lily. When she finds her sister, it's too late: Lily has killed another man while Beth was trailing her. Very unluckily, Beth is seen on the scene of the crime by a witness.

From there, things go downhill to Beth. She's interviewed by the cops, but denies any involvement in the killings. Still, she didn't have an alibi and is viewed with suspicion. Despite that, Beth refuses to say anything about Lily, and having no evidence against her, the cops let her go.

A while later, in her manor, Beth gets a taunting call from Lily, who tells Beth that the cops got an arrest warrant and are coming to get her.

"She knew what voice would be on the other end, even though she hadn’t heard it in two years. The voice she’d been searching for. The voice she hated. [...] 'I hate you,' Beth said, her throat choking and her eyes burning with unshed tears. 'No, you don’t,' Lily said. 'You really don’t.'"

Just Lily warned, the cops arrest Beth and take her to jail, where she is to wait trial. The whole time, she still refuses to talk, protecting her sister.

"Detective Black wanted to help her, yes. But he also wanted to solve this case. He wanted to be the one to uncover the truth. He wanted justice. He wanted Lily. No. No one got to have Lily. No one except Beth."

No one got to have Lily. No one except Beth. Could it be more homoerotic??? I'm sorry, but Lily literally framed Beth for murder and Beth is still protecting and lusting for her.

Beth receives a jail call from Lily, who asks if the jail is "full of dykes". Why Lily, are you jealous thinking of Beth with another woman? Lily and Beth make a deal that, once Beth is out of jail, she will Lily a good amount of money for her to away forever.

In her cell, alone with her thoughts, Beth eventually realises that there's just one way to stop Lily from killing again, and it was by killing Lily herself.

"Did Beth love Lily? Maybe. But her feelings for Lily were too much like her feelings toward herself. Hate, pity, fear—and anger. So much anger. And Lily . . . She wasn’t sure Lily knew how to love anyone."

The trial comes and Beth is declared not guilty doe to lack of evidence and she returns home. When she arrives in the Greer Manor, Lily is there waiting for her, having seemingly moved in while Beth was in jail. Lily than tells Beth that this is her price: the house. When Beth asks where she would live then, Lily replies that she wants Beth to continue living in the house with her, that it could be just like those Christmas alone.

"'We’re sisters,' Lily said. 'Two halves of the same person.'"

Beth pretend to agree to those terms and Lily goes to take a bath. When Lily is with her back turned to Beth, Beth hits her sister with a heavy ash tray. The blow doesn't kill Lily, so Beth drags her to the bathroom and draws her in the tub that Lily had been preparing.

With Lily now dead, Beth throws her body from the cliff the Manor sits on, letting her sister fall on the lake. Years later, in 2017, the body would finally be found and the identity would stay unknown until Shea brought to light all that she learned about Lily.

However, despite Lily dying in 1978, she remains a constant presence in Beth's life. Lily becomes a vengeful ghost who haunts the Greer Manor at night and prevents Beth for ever leaving.

Since Beth has no friends or ever attempts to date, she spends decades alone in her house with only her sister's ghost as company, until Shea comes in and decides to solve the Lady Killer case. Which I think is kinda romantic is a messed up way.

So that's the story of Beth and Lily. I didn't like that the book had a paranormal element to it, since I had not expected that and I hate when books that are not advertised as being supernatural turn out to be. The investigative part of the book is very weak but I think Beth's and Lily's relationship is wonderfully complex. I just wish Lily hadn't become a ghost, you know? (But, if it wasn't for the ghost, Shea would never have figured out the mystery. Not, literally. Lily's ghost tells Shea all that she needs to know to solve the Lady Killer case).

[siriuslygrimm]

Hauntingly Hampered

#BOOKREVIEW - Hauntingly Hampered - #TheBookOfColdCases #blog

One acquitted suspect of two murders and one true crime blogger meet for interviews that bring new life to a long cold investigation in The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James. A near-fatal event in Shea Collins’s past has caused her to form a few seemingly odd habits but it has also driven her passion for true crime to the extent that she runs a blog discussing cold cases, committing her…

[apesoformythoughts]

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?

[jleov2]

TW kidnapping, supernatural

I thought this book was super fascinating. A young blogger Shea Collins interviews a serial killer that was acquitted. Shea gets more than she bargained for when she goes to interview the Lady Killer. She finds the house has more answers than she realized. Shea gets in over her head quickly and has to figure out what is true and what is popular opinion. This book was an easy read and full of interesting ideas. I read this quickly as I wanted to know what happened. I did find it slow in parts but it was worth pushing through. Simone St James is brilliant and I can't wait to read more from her.

[deducemyheart]

@mickisnotclever​ ohhh thank you! I just looked it up and the premise sounds really good. Already added to my reading list.

[fiction-quotes]

“It's a high, killing someone. But sometimes...sometimes there's a moment where you have the power of life and death, and then you realize it doesn't make you any different than you were before.”

  —  The Book of Cold Cases (Simone St. James)

[flavia8]

You know. Something I really hate about a lot of popular fantasy books, and it's especially prevalent in Romantasy, is what passes for Feminism in them. It's a toothless fake, used as an aesthetic/seasoning. A sprinkle of *strong female character* and a dash of deceptively misogynistic everything else, and for the finishing touch a pinch of man who's slightly better than being openly sexist and Boom. Fantasy series led by a FMC.

Generally, the Female Main character either starts out or becomes incredibly powerful, but always, always, always her power is linked to the men around her. She supposedly has agency and makes her own choices but the choices she makes are between choices provided to her by men. Her male love interest is more powerful in SOME way, and ends up besting her in some way. Experience, training, power, there's always some way the man is better than her. Female characters are never allowed to just BE powerful. Or even just BE single. Often they give up their powers, or are forcibly stripped of them. They look down on other female characters for doing "feminine" work. And, they're stupid as hell to supposedly make them relatable or endearing. Often, the male mc is concerningly abusive but it's portrayed as dreamy, romantic and Ideal. (I genuinely get the love for villains, and enemies to not, and the love for morally grey characters, I genuinely do, but this isn't that, what happens in these books is just genuinely bad (if they actually were people) being portrayed through rose colored glasses) [And in some stories that could be genuinely interesting!] If there's a second Love Interest, he will just do the same awful shit to the MC but it's better now bc it's him.

If the female character isn't white, all of this + a staggering amount of racism. They're rarely MCs. They're fridged for the MCs, they serve the MCs, they're never as beautiful or powerful as the MC, they're stereotyped and portrayed as savage, vapid, comically evil, or just as a good guy with no character at all.

These books are presented as feminist and it pisses me off. Feminism is equality for all, and the fight for Women to be equal and have their own agency. To make their own decisions. Genuinely I believe writers should be able to write whatever they want. I have no issues with having "problematic" stuff in books. My issue is when people start to believe that this shit is feminist, and the author is so skilled and amazing, and it's a masterpiece! Fuck that.

[kodasea]

Crew studies (2021)

[secondbeatsongs]

you know a book is romance-focused when there are multiple full scenes of people doing home repair and gazing softly at each other, but then when a main character interviews a literal convicted murderer, it happens offscreen

[musicalangel12]

A haunting mystery that will grip you from start to finish.

[keyofjetwolf]

So far 2024 has seen me knocked flat by a cold, but hey, enabled my first book of the year to start and finish!

[thedisabilitybookarchive]

‘Poisoned Primrose’- Donovan, Dahlia

Disability Rep: Autism

Genre: Cosy Mystery, Mystery, Romance

Age: Adult

Setting: England

Additional Rep: Biromantic Asexual Female MC, Asexual Male LI, F/M, Lesbian SC, Gay SCs, Indian SCs, Biracial half white-half Asian SC

For more information on summaries, content warnings and additional tropes, see here:

[caffeinated-bibliophile]

Why do I keep picking up Riley Sager books