Book Review: Cold Case Squad

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Cold Case Squad     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Edna Buchanan
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Simon & Schuster, June 2004, $22.95, 260 pp.

With the advent of computer databases, the internet, DNA testing and other advances in technology and science, crimes that couldn’t be solved a decade ago might be resolved today. In Miami, the COLD CASE SQUAD consists of only four people but they are working on two cases using new investigative techniques and although they haven’t solved them they have more information that could lead to identifying the killers.

The first case involves Charles Terrell who was killed when he was working on his car when it exploded, burning him to a crisp. The coroner concluded that an accident occurred but twelve years later, his ex-wife asks them to reopen the case . She believes he was murdered because he was so fussy and meticulous, he would never work with faulty tools. Also Detective Stone discovers through the internet and databases unavailable at the time of the Terrell death that a serial killer was murdering female senior citizens. Although both cases seem impossible to solve the team is confident that they will find the killers.

COLD CASE SQUAD is an action-filled exciting police procedural that starts off at light speed and only gets faster as the story progresses. As comic relief one of the detective’s wives, furious with her husband, plays practical jokes on him that relieves the tension when it threatens to explode. Edna Buchanan gives readers an insider’s look at a group of men and women dedicated to finding killers no matter how long they have gotten away with murder.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner

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