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Book Review of Cold Cold Heart

Cold Cold Heart
Linda avatar reviewed on + 770 more book reviews


What an extraordinary book! I've been following this author for more than 10 years and her books still amaze me.

Dana is young woman, working on being an investigative journalist when she is abducted by the serial killer she is writing about. This is one really really sick individual. Dana, being the ninth victim, is used as a punching bag, raped, carved up like a turkey dinner, and had knees and hands and head battered by a hammer. She is more dead than alive.

When she is thrown into the back of a van, she somehow manages to get her hands on a screwdriver and drives it into the driver's head.

And then the real story begins. She wakes up in the hospital with no memory. All her injuries will heal in time, but she has suffered a severe brain injury. Her short term memory seems to be intact, although she has to thoroughly search for the words she wants.

(At one point in the story, she asks her mother... have you seen my feet? Mom says yes, dear...they are on the bottom of your legs. Dana says no... not feet ... the things that go on your feet. Mom says ...socks? Yes! that's it!)

After a year of therapy she is taken home by her mother and step-father who is a politician running for office, but Dana isn't the pretty young woman with a sweet nature she was before living through her nightmare.

She has forgotten how to be polite .. she says whatever comes to mind whether its appropriate or not. She works very hard at trying to remember things from her past. She accidentally discovers that her best friend in the world was also abducted when the girls were right out of high school and never seen or heard from again.

How could she forget the person who was closer than a sister to her? She begins to investigate, stirring up a lot of emotions from people close to her.

Dana thinks of herself as "After Dana"..... somehow diminished by the things she has endured. But I see her journey as a sign of strength. She forces herself to do the things that scare her the most in her quest to find what happened to her friend.

And there are many viable suspects. Her step-father who is hiding something. Her friend's boyfriend and his father, who is just plain creepy. Dana's high school boyfriend who is now in law enforcement. The detective, now retired and dying from cancer, who has a room, literally a shrine, dedicated to her friend .. the one case he never solved.

And when she comes too close to figure out what happened to her friend, she finds herself in danger once again.

Excellent reading .... 5 stars!