Book Review: The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James
Today, I get to talk about a book from one of my favorite authors, so you already know this’ll be a good one 🙂 Simone St. James’ The Book of Cold Cases is the latest in her line of mysteries wrapped in the supernatural.  If you love murder mysteries, ghost stories, and getting goosebumps while you read, you’ll love this novel.Â
Book Information
Shea has lived most of her life in fear and anxiety due to something that happened to her as a child. Because of her traumatic experience, she has developed a love of true crime and cold cases, turning her love for these unsolved mysteries into a blog. Then, her life is upended by meeting Beth Greer, a woman who was accused of being an infamous female serial killer in the 70s. As Shea gets closer to Beth, she realizes that the whole case is covered in lies, and even though Beth swears she never killed anyone, Shea knows that she had something to do with it. Someone in Beth’s house knows the truth whether that be someone who’s alive… or dead.Â
Review | Heidi Dischler
Simone St. James is at the top of my list for best authors ever. I absolutely loved The Broken Girls, and it was that book that put me in a spiral of reading every single book that St. James has ever written. Where does this novel fall in terms of the best and worst of Simone St. James? I’ll start off by saying there is no worst. I’ve never read a book by her that I didn’t like. However, this one falls somewhere in the middle. Not at the top, for sure. The Haunting of Maddy St. Clair and The Broken Girls hold those top spots, but it was still a really good read.Â
I feel like I don’t even have to go over the plot and the characters because Simone St. James always does a stellar job with both. You will get everything you want out of this novel and more; every twist has its answer and you’re never left guessing. Not to mention that the characters are always developed in ways that make them seem real. I did get The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo vibes in the very beginning of this novel, which threw me off if I’m being honest. The only other thing that I didn’t like is the lack of romance. Most of Simone St. James’ books have a decent bit of romance in them, but The Book of Cold Cases was definitely lacking in that department.Â
Spoilers ahead.
I seriously need to find someone to discuss these novels with. Was I the only one who felt semi bad for Lily? I know she was the bad guy, but jeez, she had a horrible childhood. It makes me wonder if she would’ve turned out differently had she had someone to love her.Â
Towards the end of the novel, I honestly sat there for a long time thinking that we’d have some 180 storyline happen where Beth actually turned out to be the murderer and framed her sister Lily. OR that Lily killed Beth and stole her identity and that’s who Shea had been talking to the whole time. Was I the only one waiting on that?
Otherwise, I was pretty disappointed in the lack of Michael and romance. Yes, it was nice when they finally kissed, but it was so lackluster that it didn’t even phase me. I’m crossing my fingers that her next book is packed full of romance and ghosts.Â
Overall, Simone St. James never disappoints me when I’m looking for a good mystery book. If you love any mystery book ever, even if you don’t like ghost stories that much, you’ll love her writing. I promise.Â
Source: Audiobook from Audible
My question is why was Shea so hellbent on taking Beth down. Yes Beth did murder Lily. But honestly she did the right thing bc if not she would have kept killing. And on the other side of the coin why did Beth want Shea to meet Lily alone. Did she want something bad to happen to Shea? I just feel a lot of things were left open ended. And after reading Sun Down I was a little disappointed.
Me too!! Sun Down was soo good and my personal favorite from Simone St. James was The Broken Girls, so this novel really fell flat for me. It was super disappointing.