#44 : Murder At Cold Creek College by Christa Nardi : A Review

BOOK TITLE: Murder At Cold Creek College

ISBN: 1492323829

AUTHOR: Christa Nardi

GENRE: Fiction – Crime & Mystery

NUMBER OF PAGES: 340

FORMAT: Digital (PDF)

SERIES / STANDALONE: Cold Creek #1

REVIEW BY: Shree Janani

HOW I GOT THIS BOOK: The writer mailed us a copy for review. We thank her for it!

REVIEW:

When the writer contacted us for the review, we sort of jumped into it right away. Murder of a Womanizer, Psychologist in the play. Bring it on! Given my dear co-blogger's pile of “To-Read” books is overflowing, I dived to reading it.

Psychology professor Dr.Adam Millberg is found murdered in Cold Creek college's rec center. The usual suspects : Girlfriend (Plenty there), Ex-Wives ( again plenty : 4), colleagues and the students. The story follows the investigation of the murder narrated by Adam's Colleague Dr.Sherdian. Enter State police office Brett McMann who has been assigned to investigate. He takes Sherdian's help to crack the case and love blossoms between them (Well...okay! The case gets cracked).

There are multiple suspects ranging from Sherdian's colleagues Kim, Ali to various other staff and students in the college. Thanks to a fact that Adam was playboy and traps every other women with his charm. Our protagonist seems to be one amongst the handful women who didn't fall for his antics and kept him at arm's length. Thus she is chosen to “help” the cop out. Turns out Adam slept with a lot of women, took photos/videos of them in the act and blackmailed them. Not only did he simply blackmail, he kept ledgers of the blackmail.

Predictably, that turns out to be the motive for his murder. That's the ironical part of the book. Normally in a crime novel, the motive is elaborated then the murderer is found. But in this book, the murderer is “found” and the motive is later elaborated before the murderer is officially arrested.

The writer has done a rather good job of not revealing the suspects till almost mid way of the book. She kept me guessing till the very end. Initially the book seemed rather mysterious. It sort of lacked that suspense element in the start. But as the story line progressed so did the suspense element. The plot sort of peaked only when Sherdian's car gets vandalized. That is actually when the reader begins to really suspect whom the murderer might be.

There are strong influences of Nancy drew in Christa's writing. Though the story line is unique, for a seasoned Nancy Drew reader the similarities are hard to escape.

What I loved about the book: The writer clings on to that mystery and suspense element very well. The writing was clean sans that usual twisting redirection one finds in a mystery book

What could have been better: Way too many suspects and characters. Every other woman seem to have had an affair with Adam,

VERDICT: Definitely worth a read though it has the usual recepie for a crime novel

RATING: 3.8 on 5

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: From childhood, as a fan of Nancy Drew, Dana Girls, Perry Mason, and the Hardy Boys, it was inevitable that Christa Nardi would continue her love of books and particularly mysteries. With a career in technical/nonfiction writing (under real name), it is not surprising that her love of mystery transformed into not only reading but writing mysteries. Christa combines her love for reading and writing on her blog. 

EDITIONS AVAILABLE: Digital

PRICE: Rs. 187 (Kindle)

BOOK LINKS: http://www.amazon.in/Murder-Cold-Creek-College-ebook/dp/B00FQ748GO/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1385302145&sr=8-1

Note : This review was first posted in Readers' Muse