Cold As The Grave

Back Cover Description:

A missing girl. A dead hunter. One sheriff caught in the storm.

When a seasoned hunter is found murdered in the Colorado high country and a teenage girl vanishes hours later, Sheriff Ray Duke doesn’t believe in coincidences. Not in Blue Sky County. Not with the snowstorm rolling in. And not with fresh boot tracks pointing to a tangled trail of lies.

As Duke digs deeper, what he finds isn’t just a missing girl—it’s a web of secrets that stretches across families, friendships, and the frozen wilderness they all call home.

With tensions boiling over and time running out, Duke must risk everything to bring a killer to justice and a girl safely home. But the closer he gets, the more personal it becomes—and the harder it is to tell who’s protecting the innocent… and who’s just hiding the truth.

Preview: A Christian suspense thriller with an engaging double mystery and well-written, strong characters.  

Review: 

The mystery is both a murder mystery and a missing-person mystery: a teenage girl, Lacey, and a middle-aged man, Clayton, die within hours of each other, and Duke and his deputies are struggling to maintain the balance of both cases, with a stream of clues plunging them deeper into both cases. Some complicated suspects may or may not have been responsible for Clayton’s murder or Lacey’s disappearance.  Plus, people related to the victims who seemed originally innocent began to show shades of grey and suspicion.  This felt in some ways like a classical mystery told very well. 

Sheriff Ray Duke is the strong moral center of this first book in his series.  His Christian beliefs anchor his character, and he frequently quotes Bible verses, prays, and reads the Bible, but never in a way that is distracting.  He is a Christian and a small-town sheriff; those are both so intertwined that separating the two would make no sense for the character.  He is not perfect: he is haunted by his sister’s murder 25 years ago and can’t bring himself to discuss in depth this tragedy with his family; his son was owed money for some landscaping work but instead of being honest, Duke just gives that money that his son should have gotten rather than admit nonpayment (and Duke has to own up to his actions later).  

Duke has two male deputies, Trip and Frost, but a new young female deputy, Regan McCoy, and her desires for how to handle the case put her in conflict with Duke’s established way of working, but both have a respect for the job and each other, and the conflict is not shown in a way that is hurtful or demeaning.  The department office has a resourceful secretary named Delilah, nicknamed Del. Early on, while investigating in the woods, Duke and McCoy discover a large dog, who they name Scout, who quickly becomes the department mascot and a beloved member of the Duke family.

Ray is married to a kind and compassionate wife, Grace, who is understanding of his long hours but knows when something is bothering him and won’t hesitate to talk with him about it.  They have a strong marriage, and it is very clear that Grace is the only woman Duke loves romantically.  They have four children: Sarah (17), Mark (16), Katy (14), and Silas (11).  Duke navigates his maturing children: Sarah, who is close to her boyfriend Eric, and Mark, who starts having more questions about the murder of his aunt as his classmates are talking about it at school.  Duke is sometimes confused about the right actions to take with his kids but never says an unkind word to any of his children.  

Unfortunately, with so many supporting characters, some of them will get the focus more than others.  I wish we had more background and detail on Duke’s other deputies, particularly Frost, and deeper, more meaningful interactions between Duke and his younger children, Katy and Silas.  Also, some phrases relating the characters' condition to the cold/snow/ice are overused and become just a little distracting at times.  But those are minor detractions in an otherwise very engaging and well-written mystery thriller.

Content warning: While nothing graphic is shown, there is some violence and one instance of cursing by one of the deputies that was quickly called out by Duke.  As the book deals with a murder and a missing teenage girl, mature themes are discussed throughout, and the target audience is adults.  But nothing is discussed in explicit or graphic terms.  

Overall Review: A fantastic Christian mystery thriller with excellent characters, intriguing mysteries, and Christian themes woven in expertly throughout.  Highly Recommend!