Cold Tears Reviews

Average Rating 4.6 Stars

 

 

G. Jackson reviewed Cold Tears (The Richard Carter Novels Book 2)

Another Great and Complex Psychological Mystery February 2, 2015
"Cold Tears" is the second installment of the Richard Carter series and picks up with Richard and Jill living in a small Missouri town. This book doesn't begin with a clean slate for the couple and I like that approach. I can see how their maturity and demons have affected them and their stability as a couple. Jill is working towards her PhD, trying to keep it all together, and Richard feels as though he is working towards nothing and slowly unravelling. When a Richard agrees to help a neighbor, Molly, prove her innocence in the murder of her infant child the drama and suspense begins. AR Simmons has penned another great complex and psychological mystery with this second book. I would recommend reading the series in order because Book 1 "Bonne Femme" will help fill in the backstory. Molly is a new character and I was intrigued and suspicious of her from the start. However, Simmons is great at creating suspicion and I found mine floundering from character to character as I tried... and failed... at predicting the outcome. I greatly enjoy this author's writing style and his knack for creating complex, smart plots with just the right amount of information to keep you guessing until the very end. "Cold Tears" is a good and substantial read that I recommend for mystery and thriller fans.

 

 

Patsy Packer reviewed Cold Tears (The Richard Carter Novels Book 2)

Great Cast of Characters! March 11, 2014
I was hooked after the first couple of pages! Richard Carter, floundering with life and realities of the past finds himself in the right place at the right time- - or is he??? His involvement in "detective" work to find Mancie, Molly Randolph's missing baby, casts shadows on his marriage;unrest with the local Sheriffs department and brings other area murders up close and personal. Struggling with his own personal set of issues, he walks a line to bring an ending for the neighbor who just won't give up believing her baby may still be alive. The book is well written, the characters are interesting and the dialogue very believable. AR Simmons is a great author and I am definitely going to read his other books! I was given a complimentary copy for an unbiased review---and I thoroughly enjoyed this book!!!
 
 
JW reviewed Cold Tears (The Richard Carter Novels Book 2)
drug addict and PTSD man February 28, 2014
I received a complimentary copy of this book to review it.

I couldn't put this book down until I got to the end! Putting a label on a person is one of the worst things society can do! This is a story of such an injustice both to a mother who has her baby abducted and a veteran/former police officer with PTSD! Would you reach out and help someone no matter what or who they are? By the end of the book, you will find yourself answering or at least thinking about the answer to this question. A marriage put to the ultimate test; a man with PTSD and how he copes; a woman who struggles with commitment and how to help a man she desperately loves. A cause with death as its price. Hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I did.
 
 
Tee Jay reviewed Cold Tears (The Richard Carter Novels Book 2)
Gripping February 3, 2015
After “Bonne Femme” I was really looking forward to this book and was not disappointed. The author’s descriptive writing style and slow build-up of suspense and apprehension takes this series over the top. Richard is wrestling with a lot of emotional garbage and can’t seem to snap out of it. Who could blame him after all he has been through? Because of his status as a pardoned felon he can’t have his dream job. He is not made to feel welcome in the small Missouri town he and Jill recently moved to. His relationship with Jill isn’t the greatest. Overall he’s not in the best place psychologically. Molly, a mother whose child has gone missing, reaches out to Richard for help. Serious accusations are directed at Molly and most of the small town believes she murdered her child, but there is no body. Against Jill’s wishes Richard agrees to help. As his investigation intensified I had serious concerns for his mental stability. The author did a great job characterizing a man struggling with his sense of self and fighting to succeed and overcoming the many obstacles in his way. The mystery aspect was unpredictable and the author dropped brilliant clues without giving away too much. The small-town atmosphere and setting was perfectly captured. Lots of suspense in this book! A really good read.
 
 
 
 
 
love this series October 3, 2013
Story pulled me n from the beginning n i didnt want 2 put it down til the end!! REAL PAGE TURNER!! I want all the books!!
 
 
 
Godsgirl "TR" reviewed Cold Tears (The Richard Carter Novels Book 2)
Engaging and well written! January 6, 2015
Well written with a cast of flawed but highly likeable characters. My pet peeve is novels with one note characters. The Richard Carter series features well-rounded characters, true to life. While reading the book I suspected various characters of the crime, while wondering exactly what crime had taken place! I'm looking forward to reading this series!
 
 
 
Cold Tears is wonderful! June 11, 2014
Overall: I absolutely love this author's world building. The setting of both this book and the first one Bonne Femme. I also love the plot building. The author did an awesome job making every single person suspicious without giving any solid information away until the very end. The characters are all well written, with realistic dialogue, along with realistic flaws. There's nothing I hate more than characters lacking flaws. I also loved the internal turmoil of both Richard and Jill. The small town was written beautifully, making me feel like I was there personally. Molly, the next door neighbor who's baby disappeared, was equally untrustworthy and lovable. Each clue uncovered came together wonderfully at the end, making everything make sense. The whole time I was trying to figure out the clues, but the author keeps enough until the end. All in all, I loved the storyline, characters, and the setting. The only thing I had problems with is how wishy-washy Richard was about actually helping Molly find her baby. One second he would be dying to help and the next he'd say he wanted out.

Characters: I loved each character. The police officer was hilarious. Molly, like I said, was a little sketchy, but also lovable. I felt so bad for Jill, she was so understanding even when Richard was rude or whatever. Richard was so kind-hearted and loyal, regardless of what people's reputations. Each characters flaws were so touching and realistic.

Quotes:
"You always said that despair was a sin"

"He'd always supposed that people killed themselves to escape something they thought worse than death."

Recommend?: Yes, 4/5 stars. Loved the adrenaline, setting, characters, etc.
 
 
 
(3 1/2 Stars) Good Mystery Needs Tighter Storyline April 29, 2014 After traumatic events force them to leave home and hearth, Richard and Jill Carter have moved to a small Missouri town where Jill can continue working her way toward a coveted doctorate at a nearby university. While Jill pursues her passion, Richard feels trapped in a nothing job, in a nothing town with no friends and where the residents see him as nothing more than an interloping outsider. Richard can't focus enough to keep a job - any job - and spends his days pining away for a dream life that can never be: a job with the FBI. After a self-defense killing of a wanted criminal, the resultant arrest and then governor's pardon, his pursuit of a criminology degree is moot. No one in law enforcement will ever hire him. His dream is dead.

Until their neighbor Molly passes out in their front yard one night. The next morning she comes over to thank Richard for helping her back home in her drunken state and begins to share with him the reason behind her actions. Three months before her eight-month-old daughter was taken from her home in the wee morning hours. The problem now is that the local law enforcement believe she's responsible. Her blood alcohol level was off the charts that night, not counting the almost lethal dosage of Valium in her system. With no tiny body yet discovered and little else to go on, they cannot hold the young mother indefinitely nor charge her with the crime they believe her guilty of - murdering her own child.

With nothing more than his gut instinct, Richard believes Molly's story and agrees to help find out what happened to little Mancie that night - much to Jill's chagrin. Jill's been fighting an uphill battle to help her husband find hope and healing again, not to mention income to keep them financially afloat. Now Molly's quest threatens the very thread of his sanity, leaving Jill feeling even more vulnerable and helpless in the face of uncertainty. What if Molly really did kill her baby? What about the sudden death of the babysitter? Molly's boss? And what if Richard is next?

The beginning of Cold Tears wrapped me up in the heart of the story, the kidnapping, and Jill's and Richard's emotional struggles. But after awhile, it felt like the story wasn't moving forward and that the conversations between Jill and Richard were just constant rehashing of the same argument - so much so that I almost felt as if I was on a hamster wheel just running and spinning without getting anywhere.

Don't get me wrong - there were some really good elements of a mystery here and if the story would have stayed on track in that regard, it would have kept my heart pounding. At almost four hundred pages, however, I felt it was just wrung out until it was overlong and lost much steam because of it.

Jill and Richard obviously had a lot of trauma going on in their lives. I'd liked to have gotten a bit more of the back-story to what had happened prior to their moving to Missouri. Without that, it just seemed like they argued about and conversely avoided arguing about the same things over and over without any growth or resolution. I get these kind of arguments DO happen in real life, but this is a novel. Jill flipped back and forth in her support/lack-of-support of Richard's investigation until I felt as if I was watching a very looong tennis match. It made her come across as petty and a bit unhinged at times and then almost like she was trying to be a parent to a child by the end. Even though Richard seemed a bit child-like at times, I could understand his suffering and depressed state after having the rug pulled out from underneath him. His whole life's work has collapsed. Molly's need to find out what happened to her daughter fuels a faint spark of life he hasn't felt in many months. The whole way Jill treated him, however, took her from a rather sympathetic character to a bit of a pathetic individual.

Elements of the mystery surrounding what had happened to Molly's child were initially cohesive and then became a rather disjointed mish-mash that again didn't really move the story forward until all of a sudden "poof" here's the resolution. So many characters popped in and out without getting any real time or having any real connection to the story they seemed almost unnecessary or an afterthought to get back to the main story arc after weaving away for awhile. This is where point-of-view rather ebbed and flowed too much between heads, whereas again at the beginning POV was clear and concise.

However, showing was good. We followed along with the characters most of the time as the action was happening (except for the occasional moments where things like "but he didn't notice the car passing slowly by" and such that pulled me from the story - ugh!). I appreciated this element of showing instead of telling more than I can say, especially when reading a mystery.

The elements of a good mystery are here. With some tightening of the storyline to improve pacing, a bit more of Richard's back-story blended in, and additional editing of missing or misused words, I think Cold Tears has promise. I'll give it three a a-half stars.
 
 
Kammy reviewed Cold Tears (The Richard Carter Novels Book 2)
Great Addition to the Series! February 2, 2015
With recent horrifying events behind them, Richard and Jill try to move forward. Both are struggling to better themselves but Richard is falling into a feeling of hopelessness. As he struggles with what I consider depression and Jill tries to help without much luck his interest is piqued when Molly comes to him for help. Molly is a young mother whose baby simply vanished one night and Molly is suspected of being responsible and even worse, of filicide. The relationship problems between Jill and Richard continue as Richard tries to help Molly. I really liked all of the main characters and they all tugged at my heart strings. Richard is a genuinely good guy and Jill is good for him. They just can't seem to get through the emotional yuck of the past. Molly, a mother desperate to find her child garners both suspicion and empathy. There is a menagerie of other characters that add to this mystery novel and the "whodunnit" aspect. I was thoroughly entertained by this book and glad I took the opportunity to read the series..

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