The Chill of Night

Read The Chill of Night Storyline:

A frozen corpse means a big headache for Detective Michael McCabeLainie Goff thinks she has it all. A glamorous young Portland attorney with the brains and looks to match her ambitions, she's on the fast-track to a partnership. Until one cold winter night she discovers that her belief in her ability to handle any situation was misplaced. Now she's just a frozen corpse in the boot of a car at the end of Portland Fish Pier.And a problem for homicide detective Michael McCabe. Luckily for McCabe, there's a witness. A mentally disturbed young woman named Abby Quinn saw what happened to Lainie. Unfortunately, Abby mysteriously goes missing the very same night. With a victim who'd known more than her share of bad guys, a list of suspects that seems to get longer and longer and his only witness missing, McCabe has got his work cut out.But it's only a matter of time before the killer strikes again . . .From Publishers WeeklyPortland, Maine, Det. Sgt. Michael McCabe, introduced in The Cutting, has to deal with a frozen corpse, a missing witness, and a sadistic killer in Hayman's satisfying second novel of suspense. One winter day, a cop finds the naked body of Lainie Goff, a beautiful and ambitious young lawyer in Portland's largest law firm, stuffed into the trunk of her BMW convertible at the end of a fishing pier. Lainie's past, present, and what might have been her future all hold possible clues: she was an abused child; she worked with abused teen girls at Sanctuary House; and she had plans for making partner at Palmer Milliken. A possible witness is Abby Quinn, a schizophrenic teen who hears voices and has disappeared. The police need to find Abby before the cold weather or the killer gets her. McCabe, with an eidetic memory and a passion for avenging victims, is a formidable detective tested to the limit in Hayman's atmospheric puzzler. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistFinding the frozen, nude body of lawyer Lainie Goff in the trunk of her new Mercedes is a particular shock for Detective Sergeant Mike McCabe, because the corpse is a dead ringer for his remarried ex-wife, Sandy, with whom he still has a love-hate (mostly hate) relationship. So he has personal issues to deal with while he and partner Maggie Savage probe into the victim's past and search for the only witness to the crime, schizophrenic Abby Quinn. The bitter cold of a Portland, Maine, winter complicates the case, both in delaying forensic work on the body and in endangering some of the principals, especially Quinn, who's on the run. McCabe is a stickler for getting after the truth, whether examining his own emotions or closing cases. His second outing (after The Cutting, 2009) features a strong sense of place (the action seesaws between the mainland and nearby Harts Island), well-rounded characters, and a twisting, action-filled plot. This one puts Portland, Maine, firmly on the crime-fiction map. --Michele Leber