Cold Tears

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Cold Tears

A woman as deep in despair as a person can be. Is it unbearable grief or unbearable guilt?

A child is missing, a baby taken away in the middle of the night. It’s a life-shattering tragedy, but no one seems to care. Is it because the grieving mother is a “lowlife druggie,” as the chief investigator maintains? Or is there another reason the case is given short shrift by the “good people” of James Mill?

Richard Carter, an ex-Marine suffering PTSD who has been spared prosecution for felony homicide only by a governor’s pardon, consents to help the grieving mother, Molly. In doing so, he ignores the pleading of his wife, Jill, who begs him to disengage from the situation which she sees as a threat to his wounded psyche.

Will the truth, if and when he finds it, save or destroy the woman who sees Richard as her “godsend?”

What he is doing may be futile as well as unwise. It may, in fact, plunge him into clinical depression and wreck his marriage. He has given his word to Molly, but Jill is his life.

What will the truth do to them all? And what are “cold tears”?

From the AuthorAlthough this is the second book in the Richard Carter series, it was the fourth one written, and the first set in the Ozarks. I moved Richard directly into Hawthorn County from Michigan. (If you read Bonne Femme, you understand the reason for the move.) However, after two novels set there, I realized that the move to the hill country was not seamless. So I wrote Cold Tears as a bridge to take the Carters from Breton County, Michigan to Hawthorn County Missouri, and to take Richard from pardoned felon to rural deputy sheriff. The Carters also had emotional and marital problems to resolve. Cold Tears gave me the opportunity tie up loose ends and settle them (emotionally and physically) in the place where they begin gathering a non-traditional extended family.

Another way this book was out of place was that it was published third instead of second as it should have been. This was unavoidable due to contractual problems which are best not discussed. Suffice it to say, things were resolved in time for me to publish shortly after Canaan Camp.

This novel was great fun to write, and I hope you will enjoy reading it. I got attached to another character, a strong young woman. I must confess that I am partial to powerful female characters.