Cold Blood - Hardcover

Lynda La Plante

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 033363859X ISBN 13: 9780333638590

Publisher: Macmillan, 1996

Synopsis

Suspicion and fear surround the mysterious disappearance of a movie star's daughter. The race to claim the reward for finding Anna Louise Caley - dead or alive - spirals into a deadly voodoo trail in the French quarter of New Orleans.In her desperation to succeed in this, her first case as a private detective, ex-Lieutenant Lorraine Page is caught in a web of deceit and violence that threatens to drag her back into the murky world she has fought so hard to escape.Continuing the investigation means risking everything. But the million-dollar bonus is one hell of an incentive not to back off from a case that could kill her - or give her the future and the professional respect she craves.

About this title

Review

A weakness for the bottle has cost Lorraine Page her job as a lieutenant in the LAPD, her family--everything she once held dear. Down and out, Page finds the will to crawl out of the bottle, pull together the few remaining strands of her life, and open a modest detective agency in Los Angeles. After a slow start, she finally lands a high-profile case that she hopes will get her business off the ground. The daughter of a movie star has disappeared while on a trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and the distraught parents offer Page a cool million if she can find the girl.

Page quickly discovers the case is about more than one missing girl, and her investigation leads her into the seamy underworld of New Orleans lowlife and rich, thrill-seeking Hollywood kids, a world where violence and deceit are as commonplace as beignets and café au lait. As the pressure to find the girl mounts, Page finds herself falling off the wagon, turning again to booze for solace in her hour of need. Out of control, she knows she should back off the case, but one million dollars is a powerful incentive to keep going; if she blows this case, she realizes, she will never get the professional respect she so desperately wants.

From the Inside Flap

Prime Suspect, the enormously successful two-time Emmy Award-winning television series, established its writer and creator, Lynda La Plante, as one of the preeminent originators of realistic crime drama. Turning her talent from the screen to the page,

La Plante has crafted an intelligent, hard-hitting thriller featuring a female lead every bit as compelling and complex as her Prime Suspect heroine played by Helen Mirren. Lorraine is a three-time loser: an ex-LAPD cop, ex-hooker, ex-wife, even an ex-mom, since she has lost custody of her kids. She is recovering from the alcoholism that nearly destroyed her life and, through tremendous force of will, has managed to pull herself back together and set up her own private detective agency in Los Angeles, but she finds that there is scant demand for her services.

Finally she lands the high-profile case that could activate her new career. The eighteen-year-old daughter of a fading movie starlet has disappeared during Mardi Gras, and her parents offer Lorraine $1 million if she finds the girl, dead or alive. As the search for the missing girl becomes a deadly murder hunt involving Hollywood rich kids and New Orleans lowlife, Lorraine is caught in a web of deceit and violence that threatens to drag her back into the murky world she has fought so hard to escape. When she finds herself strongly attracted to Robert Caley, the girl's father-- who, in turn, is sexually drawn to her--she knows she faces a new kind of danger. She begins to spin out of control and turns to her old friend booze for solace.The game gets more dangerous as Lorraine fights demons within and without, but the million-dollar bonus is a powerful incentive not to back off a case that would give her the professional respect she craves but could also kill her. Cold Blood reverberates with realism; its plot is multilayered, its characters vibrantly alive--just what one would expect from Lynda La Plante, a consummate chronicler of the criminal world.

Edition details

• Publisher: Macmillan
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 033363859X
• ISBN 13: 9780333638590
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1