Title:	A Cold Day in Hell
	Author:	Lissa Marie Redmond
	Published:	February 8, 2018, Midnight Ink
	No. of Pages:	384
	Cover Price:	$15.99 Paperback, $11.99 Kindle

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A Cold Day in Hell by Lissa Marie Redmond, is the first installment in A Cold Case Investigation series. The protagonist in the series is Lauren Riley, an accomplished detective who excels in clearing cold cases. Lauren is generally on the side of the prosecution, but when a defense lawyer, Frank Violanti, asks her to help with a murder case he is working on, she finds herself accepting the job, even though she loathes Violanti. After meeting the 18 year-old suspect, who is Violanti’s God-son, she is convinced he isn’t guilty, so agrees to help; she doesn’t want an innocent teen to go to prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Her decision to help investigate isn’t popular with her boss, and her job is in jeopardy.

Lauren doesn’t make good personal decisions when it comes to husbands and boyfriends, and her relationships are hindering her work on the case. One previous fiancé is stalking her, and her life is in danger in a few scenarios.

Redmond is an excellent storyteller; readers will be hooked after the first chapter, and will have difficulty putting the novel down. She does an excellent job of developing her characters, and they are believable. Redmond is a retired detective, so knows courtroom procedure as well as investigative protocol, so the scenarios are definitely credible. Suspense builds from the beginning, and doesn’t stop until the last page. The dénouement is, of course surprising, and there are a few issues left hanging which, it is assumed, will be part of the next installment of the series.

While all review copies have a few spelling and other small errors that are generally corrected before the final copies are published, this novel has a dozen or so blatant grammatical errors that will make readers wish Redmond would take a class in Grammar 101; for instance, “Her and that partner of hers.” (She and that partner of hers), “There has only been two…” (There have only been two…), and “Her and Reese” (She and Reese). There are also several places where whom should have been used for who. While these errors are no reason to skip this novel, they are a bit irritating and hopefully will be fixed prior to the final publishing.

Even though A Cold Day in Hell isn’t perfect, it is an excellent and very suspenseful novel. The courtroom scenes are riveting, things are not as they appear, and Lauren is a great character. Readers who are looking for a novel full of suspense will enjoy this novel and have trouble waiting for the next installment in the series.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.