The Book of Cold Cases

In Claire Lake, Oregon, Shea Collins works a day job as a doctor's receptionist and spends her nights running The Book of Cold Cases, a true-crime blog she keeps anonymous. Her fixation has a source: at nine years old she was abducted and escaped, and she has never stopped looking at the people who take other people away.

When Beth Greer walks into the clinic, Shea recognises her instantly. In 1977 Beth was tried for the Lady Killer murders — two men shot dead, a note left behind — and acquitted. To Shea's astonishment, Beth agrees to be interviewed. The interviews happen at the Greer mansion above the sea, a house that does not behave the way houses should, and the more Beth talks, the less certain Shea becomes about who is questioning whom.

Simone St. James alternates between Shea in the present and the Greer family in 1977, letting a cold-case mystery and a ghost story share the same rooms. It is a standalone novel, quiet and atmospheric rather than gory, and it resolves both halves of its question by the end.