Cold Day in July — Stella Cameron

Toussaint, Louisiana, is a sleepy bayou town where live oaks stretch over roadways, men raise crawfish the way their granddaddies did, and Spanish moss hangs in ribbons above the swamps and dirt roads, keeping everything shaded from the hot July sun. It's a place where people are used to feeling safe--until the body of singer Bonnie Blue is found at the base of St. Cecil's belfry stairs, her eyes searching, her neck broken.

Local medical examiner Reb O'Brien has lived in Toussaint all her life, but she doesn't believe the gossip--that Bonnie's death was an accident, an unfortunate fall in the dark. She remembers all too clearly the rape/murders of two other women a year earlier. The killer was caught and placed behind bars. But now, what happened to Bonnie raises chilling questions about a case thought long closed.

Marc Girard doesn't believe in accidents. What he does believe is that the dead woman may be his missing sister, Amy, a lost soul with a history of drug and man problems. Though he'd vowed to stay away from Toussaint, where his wealthy, aloof family had been disliked by the ordinary townsfolk, Marc is coming home to search for the truth--even if it means joining forces with Reb O'Brien, a woman he left behind with his past. But the Reb he remembers--an annoyingly brainy, precocious seventeen-year-old who followed him like a puppy--has matured into a fascinating and beautiful woman who doesn't get pushed around by anyone. Not anymore.

Though they may not like each other, Marc and Reb will have to work together to solve riddles with no answers: Who could Bonnie have been meeting at St. Cecil's in the dead of night? What does she have to do with the disappearance of Marc Girard's sister? And if the wrong man is sitting in prison, could the real killer still be slipping through the bars and cane fields, front porches and back roads of a town they once thought safe? It's a tangle of secrets as dark and deep as the muddy waters of the Atchafalaya, where friendly faces and Big Easy manners hide deep-rooted jealousies and cold-hearted hate. With only each other to trust, Marc and Reb's mutual wariness gives way to newfound closeness that marks them for gossip in a town ready to explode, and leads them to a blinding passion that may make them vulnerable to the greatest betrayal of all...