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Hurricane Danielle has devastated Key Tango in the Florida Keys where Mira Morales, a working psychic, owns a home and bookstore. Now she is rebuilding. She's sent her daughter and grandmother, the co-owner of the bookstore, to stay with friends on the Florida mainland who have electricity and water as she stays to oversee the work. One day as Mira is wandering around the devastated Key she is overtaken by a psychic vision in a nearby house -- a woman is burning and a child is being kidnapped. She runs to the house only to find that another woman has been shot and killed. She calls her recent ex, FBI man Wayne Sheppard. Famous actress Suki Nichols, her husband and their son Adam live in the house. But Adam is nowhere to be found. The local police are called in along with the FBI, as they think the killer must have kidnapped the son. At first Mira is a suspect, but luckily she had done a reading for the actress months before and she is let go. But Suki asks Mira to use her powers to find Adam and Mira can't refuse. Meanwhile the kidnapper, Spenser Finch, a man of good looks, taste and more than a bit of madness, has Adam in his home locked in a room with all the luxuries a teenager could want. Finch is working on getting back at the actress and her husband for refusing him a part in a film that became successful. But almost unknown to the murderous madman, he is also working through some of the sources for his madness, which includes a brutal father and a childhood that he doesn't remember. He vows revenge on the actress to make her feel the loss he felt when he was rejected. Once you permit yourself to believe that Mira is a powerful true psychic and that the dead often visit her to give her information she needs, and can get comfortable with that premise, COLD AS DEATH is a fine thriller and mystery. Most of the book is realistic as is possible when dealing with a woman who has paranormal powers and how people react to it. In fact she has even broken up with her long-time lover Wayne Sheppard, because he can't help but still question her powers. This is the latest in a long-running series and the first one I've read. It stands on its own and fills the readers in on the back-story smoothly. It's well written and the location is brought to life in a powerful way. As I said, most of the story is fine, but by the end for some reason, the author creates a connection between each character that rips apart the believability of the story. Then at the very end, on top of psychic powers and ghostly interventions, she overloads the paranormal balance and ruins what had been a solid, enjoyable story. COLD AS DEATH is a good mystery -- just be prepared to believe in psychic powers and ghostly assistance.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, August 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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