Cold Hard News --by Maureen Milliken

Fiction / Mystery

 310     pages

5 Stars

I was furnished a copy of this book for an honest review.

Mysteries are not my genre of choice, and when I was asked to read Cold, Hard, News I agreed, without much enthusiasm. I ended up reading it in a day!

The first thing I like about this book is the locale — Maine. A part of the country I've never visited. The second thing I like about this book is the protagonist, Bernie, a 40-something single woman who recently bought the little weekly newspaper where she was hired as a reporter when she first graduated from college. She had been gone a long time, and now that she's back to this little town, she's learning how difficult it can be to be from 'away' and come to live in a small cliquish town. She is not only the owner, but also the main reporter, and she has to be careful of what she prints as news — or earn the enmity of the locals, and lose their support. And Bernie has ADHD.

Pete, the new Chief of Police, is also from away. He was a homicide cop in Philadelphia and came to Redimere as the new chief. An outsider, he isn't exactly trusted, and has earned the enmity of at least one of his cops who thought the job should have gone to him.

The book starts off with the discovery of a body. Stanley has spent the winter buried in a snowdrift while the town thought he was at a cousin's in North Carolina. The ME rules the death as 'undetermined.' The townsfolk classify it as accidental, but little things keep niggling at the back of Bernie's skull.

In the last two years, there have been deaths that have all been called accidents, but they, in true mystery form, are somehow connected. I had a couple figured out, but I had a couple figured out wrong, too.

I really enjoyed reading a story with a strong woman protagonist, and one who, though she has a medical/psychological condition, chose not to use it as an excuse, but to live and work with it. It was interesting to see how she did it, and the book gave me a much better understanding of ADHD, what it is, how it affects people, and why my nephew is the way he is.

This is a stand-alone book, but I hope it's the first of many Bernie and Pete stories!

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