Cold Case

The roles for women in mysteries improve. Perhaps Northern California police officer Robin Burcell gets insight from being on the job every day, and the result shows in her police procedural about SFPD Homicide Investigator Kate Gillespie, who's got a Katharine Hepburn attitude. She has a sense of justice akin to Camellia "Mel" Walker, PI, the heroine of another excellent police procedural, The Cop was White as Snow, which sparked the Harbour Point Mystery Series based on the real-life cases worked by retired PI Joyce Spizer. We are women, hear us roar...we're packing, too! In fact, the only thing Kate fears is commitment. While the case may be cold, the romance and tension are red-red hot. Love a mystery with a Star Trek reference!

Burcell's mystery books are the type you can read in the family room without embarassment. Cold Case is a wonderful mixture of crime, secrets, a past 3 year case re-surfacing, hidden identities, gunshots and Kate Gillespie's wonderful cop humor. And the big question: will she or won't she with her amor, Mike Torrance? Another great Burcell book to pick and read and pack your troubles away and relax. Pray she lives a long life and keeps writing this series.

San Francisco detective Kate Gillespie has no idea the hornet's nest she's about to stir up when she goes on TV, pleading for leads in a three-year-cold murder case. Soon she has an intriguing lead from a "Jane Doe" that puts Kate at the scene of a bank robbery/murder in progress. The bank robbery offers a clue--bullets that came from the same gun as the cold-case murder. Soon Kate is knee-deep in a colorful cast of characters and suspects--a sexy gangster; the gangster's ex-wife, who goes by several different aliases and is currently missing; the ex-wife's transexual brother, "Louise"; the dead banker's non-grieving widow. Then there are the good guys, including her potential lover, Mike Torrance, formerly with the San Francisco police and now the FBI, and his oddly unemotional and far-too-pretty partner. This book is nonstop action--driving here, questioning this suspect, tracing phone records, fingerprints, background checks, car chases, shootings, stalkings. It's a great deal of fun. And if I occasionally got lost in the complex twists and turns of the plot--there were some convoluted scenes with name after name after name thrown out until my head spun--most of the time I didn't care that I didn't know what was going on. I certainly gave up trying to figure it out and assumed all would be explained, which it was. Kate Gillespie is a likeable, competent, no-nonsense heroine with just that hint of feminine vulnerability that makes me relate to her. I look forward to the next installment of her relationship with Torrance.

I like Robin Burcell's books. They are light and engaging - with great insights into police procedures and the lives of detectives. The mystery in this book revolves around the case that Kate was investigating when she got shot. A television appearance by Kate mushrooms into a mystery that involves a mob boss's ex-wife, a restaurant owner, and a large amount of diamonds.I also like the relationship that has developed over the last three books and this one between Kate and Mike - two people who are stubborn, demanding, hard-working, and obviously meant to be with each other. I am already looking forward to the next book in the series.

If you've read any of Robin's books, you need to run out and get this one.If you haven't read the the first three books in this series, you really need to start at the beginning and read them from first to last (Every Move She Makes, Fatal Truth, Deadly Legacy, then Cold Case) in order to get the full benefit of the nail-biting, hair-twisting, massive frustration the rest of us have endured. Not will Kate Gillespie and Mike Torrance survive, not will they figure out the case, not will they get the bad guys... but -- WILL THEY EVER, WELL, YOU KNOW!?!?!?!?!?!There's a great mystery in each one of Robin's books as a bonus. In COLD CASE, a three-year-old unsolved murder, in which Kate was shot, surfaces along with a bank robbery, another murder, more long-stemmed red roses, and a number of people in disguise. (not to mention that Kate has more than her share of Mocha Lattes!) So do Kate and Mike actually get together in this book? Does Robin finally give us the goods? Better pick it up and see. You'd hate to read the first three and then miss it when it finally happened, wouldn't you?