A Dead Cold Mystery

It was a real Jack in the box. Only this box was a UPS delivery to crime novelist Helena Magnusson, and the Jack was Jack Connors–her husband; or at least his head. The rest of him was probably in the East River somewhere.

When Karl and Christen Redfern were brutally murdered in their apartment in the Bronx, a lot of things were never explained. But the biggest mystery of all was where Karl and Christen’s daughter, Amy, had disappeared with her boyfriend, Charlie, on the very night of her parents’ murder.

When Karl and Christen Redfern were brutally murdered in their apartment in the Bronx, a lot of things were never explained, like why he was stabbed only twice, with clinical precision, but she was stabbed 20 times in the heart, in a crazed frenzy; like what happened to their Chevy Impala, and why Christen’s sister, Ingrid, had never reported it missing. But the biggest mystery of all was perhaps where Karl and Christen’s daughter Amy had disappeared to, along with her boyfriend, Charlie, on the very night of her parents’ murder.

Detective John Stone of the NYPD heads up the 43rd’s cold case unit, in the Bronx. In a place like the Bronx you get a lot of cold cases. So Stone has one golden rule for investigating a case: It must have some remote chance of being solved. So what made him choose the Al Chester case, the 60-year-old schizophrenic murdered on his birthday, 12 years earlier, alone in his apartment—a case where there was zero forensic evidence?

There hadn’t been a crime in Dexter, upstate New York, since 1865. It was a long time coming, but when it came, on September 21st, 2012, it was ugly. It was murder.

October, 2010, Sally Jones had been stabbed in the heart in her apartment on Commonwealth Avenue, in the Bronx. Her coat was on the back of her chair. Her shoes were beside her bed, her clothes were neatly folded, and she was dead under the sheets.

October, 2010, Sally Jones had been stabbed in the heart in her apartment on Commonwealth Avenue, in the Bronx. Her coat was on the back of her chair. Her shoes were beside her bed, her clothes were neatly folded, and she was dead under the sheets.

Lilith Jones was a statistical anomaly. Her mother found her face down on the frozen sidewalk by the light of the single streetlamp on Pugsley Avenue, with her neighbor’s scissors stuck in her back. The scissors belonged to her neighbor, and so did all the fingerprints on them. Her neighbor, Pat Perkins, hated Lilith. She hated her because her own husband, her brother, and her daughter all loved Lilith. Lilith was charming, beautiful, smart, and adorable.

Mommy’s Boy had not killed for five years. Detective Alvarez of the 43rd in the Bronx had lined up his suspects, but each of them had a more or less credible alibi, and he was nowhere close to solving the case. Then, the killings had stopped, and the case went cold....

The Cold Cases team at the 43rd Precinct in the Bronx tend to focus on homicides. But now, Detective John Stone, head of the team, is curious about a two year-old rape case. A rape case where Sadie Byrne got HIV, turned out to be a rapid progressor and died of AIDS within a year. She never named her attacker.

The Cold Cases team at the 43rd Precinct in the Bronx tend to focus on homicides. But now, Detective John Stone, head of the team, is curious about a two-year-old rape case. A rape case where Sadie Byrne got HIV, turned out to be a rapid progressor and died of AIDS within a year. She never named her attacker.

The neighbor called it in because the house next door, normally empty and silent, at two AM was a blaze of light, with people shouting and car doors slamming, like gunshots in the night. Until he heard two reports that echoed down the dark, silent street and spoke of death, two reports that were not slamming doors, but gunshots.

Detective John Stone had a marriage made in heaven. His wife was young, beautiful and smart, and she was his partner in the Cold Cases unit at the 43rd. They were tight, close, and practically telepathic. At least, that was what he’d always thought - until she got an interest outside their marriage, and that interest became a passion.

There are a lot of things you really don’t want to find when you’re a homicide detective in the Bronx. High on the list is a new serial killer. Serial killers are real bad news because they kill without motive, so they are hard to trace and they can take years to catch. But even worse than a new serial killer, is a new kind of serial killer: one who murders with a motive, but a motive so unfathomable nobody can understand it; a motive that makes his choice of victims incomprehensible and unpredictable, a motive that leads to each victim being killed in a particularly cruel and unusual way.

There are a lot of things you really don’t want to find when you’re a homicide detective in the Bronx. High on the list is a new serial killer. Serial killers are real bad news because they kill without motive, so they are hard to trace and they can take years to catch. But even worse than a new serial killer, is a new kind of serial killer: one who murders with a motive, but a motive so unfathomable nobody can understand it; a motive that makes his choice of victims incomprehensible and unpredictable, a motive that leads to each victim being killed in a particularly cruel and unusual way.

Cherise Brown, her small daughter Shevron, her husband Earl. The only survivor, eight year-old Leroy who witnessed the whole thing. His story, that his father broke his sister’s neck, his mother stabbed his father in the back and his dad, before dying, in a kind of berserker rage, took the knife and killed his mother. Four years later Leroy Brown is murdered along with his adoptive sister, Lea. He is stabbed in the back, while his sister’s throat is cut, in a tool shed in the back yard of his adoptive family.

At forty-something, Bob Walklet was about to make a fortune with his IT company. But he'd made the mistake of falling in love with his assistant, twenty-something Sorka Williams. They were crazy about each other, and Bob had told his wife, Sheila - a thirty-something, ex-cop insurance consultant. He wanted a divorce. And there was a prenup. When he was found in his bedroom, stabbed in the heart, her DNA was literally all over him, her prints were on the knife and a neighbor had seen her hurrying from the house at the time of death.

USA Today and Amazon two million copy best-selling author Blake Banner is at his best in this mystifying crime series! And so is the Castle Hill Ripper. His MO hasn’t changed. He still stalks pregnant women like a hunter.

Detective John Stone is taking early retirement. He has informed the chief, Inspector John Newman; and his partner and wife, Carmen Dehan, is retiring with him. She is pregnant and both Stone and Dehan want a safe, secure environment for their future child. Their sights are set on New England, where Stone will write his memoirs. So the last thing either of them expects is a curtain call from one of Stone’s old flames. Yet that is exactly what happens when actress Jane Morley shows up and asks Stone to investigate a very particular cold case.