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Summary
Summary
The Miami Police Department's Cold Case Squad works to unravel a 45-year-old murder case and discovers that a murderer is still out there--and the case is still hot in this latest Cold Case Squad novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Queen of Crime.
Author Notes
Edna Rydzik Buchanan was born in 1939 near Paterson, New Jersey. She attended creative writing classes at Montclair State Teacher's College.
Buchanan was one of the first female crime reporters in Miami. Her police reporting for the Miami Herald won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1986.
In 1979, Buchanan produced her first book, Carr: Five Years of Rape and Murder; From the Personal Account of Robert Frederick Car III. This nonfiction book recounts the story of a convicted rapist and murderer. In 1987, she published her memoirs, The Corpse Had a Familiar Face: Covering Miami, America's Hottest Beat. That book was followed in 1991 by Never Let Them See You Cry: More From Miami's Hottest Beat.
Buchanan's crime novels include Nobody Lives Forever and Pulse. She is perhaps best known, however, for her mystery novels featuring a Cuban American crime reporter, Britt Montero. These titles include Contents Under Pressure; Miami, It's Murder; Suitable for Framing; Margin of Error, and Act of Betrayal. She has been a contributor to several magazines, including Fame, Family Circle, Cosmopolitan and Rolling Stone.
Buchanan has received awards from the American Bar Association, National Newspaper Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Saving Shadows, a historic Miami waterfront estate that's about to be bulldozed-annoying preservationists and reopening a 45-year-old unsolved murder-isn't enough to rescue its novel namesake. Staying in familiar Miami territory, Buchanan brings back the crew from Cold Case Squad for this outing: Miami PD Sgt. Craig Burch and ragtag detectives Sam Stone, Pete Nazario and, this time, Joe Corso. Watched closely by their lieutenant and by the press, Burch and posse focus on the unsolved 1961 murder of Pierce Nolan, a legendary local scion and former mayor killed by a shotgun blast. With the help of Kiki Courtelis, an anxious preservationist, the team gains access to his long-shuttered estate-only to conveniently discover an antique trunk full of infant corpses. Subplots are forced: Nazario has instant feelings for Kiki; Stone spontaneously avenges the death of his parents; the workings of an illegal adoption ring comes to light. Retired journalist Buchanan (You Only Die Twice) is a longtime Miami resident who won a Pulitzer Prize for her police reporting, but this outing lacks her usual attention to plot and detail. And there's not enough emotional motivation for cozy fans or real estate porn for historic house junkies. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Buchanan returns to the Miami specialized police unit she premiered in last year's Cold Case Squad. She returns also to the cop humor and interjected war stories that she has been known for since her newspaper days. (Sometimes, though, her set-pieces, delivered as monologues in too perfect a style, with no interruptions by the listeners, seem unrealistic.) On the second time around for the Cold Case detectives, a woman seeking to preserve Shadows, a historic Miami mansion, tells the detectives that the 1961 murder of the then-owner of the property, a former mayor of Miami, will never be solved if the manse is bulldozed. The cops agree to search the house, one of the few South Florida houses with a basement, and, in a winningly chilling scene, find a cache of mummified human infants. This horrific discovery leads from a cold case to an ongoing one. Fast, funny, and shocking--all the characteristics of vintage Buchanan. --Connie Fletcher Copyright 2005 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Another double helping of ancient Miami murder for the Cold Case Squad. As usual, Buchanan jump-starts her story with an irresistible hook. The Cold Case cops going through the Shadows, murdered Miami ex-mayor Pierce Nolan's abandoned mansion, just before it gets bulldozed to make room for condos find a chilling surprise in the basement: a box containing the mummified remains of seven babies that's been there for over 40 years. Pierce's widow, Diana Nolan, reacts first with frigid hauteur, then with accusations against her obviously promiscuous husband. But DNA evidence shows that not one of the babies is related to Pierce or any of the others. The discovery rivets most of the squad, but not Officer Sam Stone, who's gotten permission to reopen a case closer to home: the shooting of his parents back in 1987. He swiftly finds that Ray Glover, the cop who delivered the bad news to Sam and his grandmother, died soon afterward in a suspicious accident and that all three murders had their roots in a conspiracy that reaches back even further. Though the two cases never intersect, they pull so many citizens, from a peeping Tom to a millionaire's wastrel daughter, into their orbit that all Miami seems to be united in covering up some shameful secret. Honored veteran Buchanan (Cold Case Squad, 2004, etc.) produces another masterfully crowded canvas, even if some of the loose ends are tied up more convincingly than others. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The story of a mysterious house and a 45-year-old murder goes "hot" in this second in a series about the Miami Police Department's Cold Case Squad. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Buchanan lives in Miami. Six-city author tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.