Cold Blood
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
When Bunny Pederson disappears after being a bridesmaid at her best friend's wedding, the police call for volunteers to help search for her. One of them, a travelling shirt salesman, discovers the woman's amputated finger and the missing person inquiry becomes a murder investigation. In the absence of a body, the salesman, Justice Trip, is courted by the media - a position he'd learned to enjoy from a similar experience some years previously. Paris Murphy, a detective with the Minneapolis-St Paul's Police Department, remembers Trip from her schooldays and isn't convinced by his act as a caring citizen, especially when Bunny's body is found in an area Trip had visited. The case isn't strictly in her jurisdiction, but it is a welcome distraction from her failing marriage and her guilt over an affair she knows isn't really over.
Justice Trip was ugly, still lived with his invalid father in a trailer park and his c.v. was a repetitive litany of firings from dead-end jobs. But he was very successful at killing people - and getting away with murder - until Paris Murphy crosses his path.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Efficient plotting and crisp dialogue mark Monsour's second Paris Murphy thriller, in which what goes around comes around in more ways than one. Set in the Twin Cities of Minnesota and revisiting likable characters introduced in Clean Cut (2003), this disturbing novel focuses on the attractive homicide detective's pursuit of the creepy, drug-addicted Sweet Justice Trip, a serial hit-and-run killer Murphy once knew in high school. Trip was assaulted by Murphy's pals after he asked her to Homecoming, and he blamed her for the attack, later running his tormentors off the road into a lake in his first deadly "accident." Eighteen years later it's time for a reunion, and Trip's still having accidents. Playing the hero, he pretends to help search for Bunny Pederson, a drunk bridesmaid he plowed down and buried in a shallow grave. Murphy recognizes Trip on a newscast and begins to suspect her ex-classmate might be connected to that crime and possibly others. Murphy's working relationship with boss Axel Duncan (think Redford with muscles) heats up, suggesting further developments in the next installment. Monsour's depiction of the harrowing relationship Trip has with his father contrasts neatly with Murphy's organized work and more normal personal life, despite its romantic confusions, making this a satisfying, if not surprising, suspense read.
