Who Killed These Girls?

Who Killed These Girls?  Cold Case: The Yogurt Shop Murders by Beverly Lowry, 373 pages

On December 6, 1991, firefighters in Austin, Texas responded to reports of a small fire at an "I Can't Believe Its Yogurt!" shop in a suburban strip mall.  Inside they discovered the raped, murdered, partially burned corpses of four teenage girls.  Two young men were subsequently convicted of participating in the crime, but after ten years in prison they were released and all charges against them dropped.  The real perpetrators have never been caught.  

Beverly Lowry is intimately familiar with Austin.  She knows its neighborhoods, knows its people, and she knows how deeply this horrific crime wounded the community.  Most of all, having herself lost a child to an unknown hit-and-run driver, she knows something of the pain of the families of the victims.  This perspective turns Who Killed These Girls? into something more than an ordinary true crime book - a fact-based meditation on the inexplicable nature of evil and the elusive nature of truth.

Cold Cold Heart

Cold Cold Heart by Tami Hoag
388 Pages


"Dana Nolan was a promising young TV reporter until a notorious serial killer tried to add her to his list of victims. Nearly a year has passed since surviving her ordeal, but the physical, emotional, and psychological scars run deep.; Struggling with the torment of post-traumatic stress syndrome, plagued by flashbacks and nightmares as dark as the heart of a killer, Dana returns to her hometown in an attempt to begin to put her life back together. But home doesn't provide the comfort she expects. Dana's harrowing story and her return to small town life have rekindled police and media interest in the unsolved case of her childhood best friend, Casey Grant, who disappeared without a trace the summer after their graduation from high school.; Terrified of truths long-buried, Dana reluctantly begins to look back at her past." 

A solid mystery with plenty of red herrings to try and trip you up.  

The Burning Room

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly
388 Pages

Harry Bosch returns with a new partner and a new cold case to solve.   When a shooting victim dies years after being show, the death is deemed murder.  Bosch and his partner Lucia Soto must start examining the evidence to see if they can find who committed this crime in an apparent drive-by shooting. 


Michael Connelly write excellent police procedural  and this one does not fail to to satisfy.

After I'm Gone

After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman 334 pages

When Felix Brewer skips town in 1976 to avoid a Federal charge and prison he leaves behind his wife Bambi, 3 daughters and a mistress Julie.  No one knows where he went.  In 1986 Julie disappears and everyone assumes that she left to join him until her body is found in 2001.  There are no leads the case becomes cold until Sandy Sanchez, a retired police officer, reopens the cold case and begins investigating the murder of Julie. What he discovers is bitterness, jealousy, resentment and longing stretching over five decades all surrounding Felix Brewer who has never been forgotten by the five women who loved him. The book examines each woman's connection with Felix and how his leaving affected their lives

Lippman always writes a well written novel and this is no exception. The character of Sandy Sanchez is well fleshed out and hopefully he will appear in Lippman's Tess Monaghan series.  The daughters are also interesting but the mother after her marriage to Felix fades into the background and we don't have much interaction with her memories and thoughts once Felix leaves.  I believe the character of Bambi could have been better.