Cold Consequences opens with Ashley Cummins, a young, wealthy white woman in her early 20's, sitting in her BMW convertible around 1:00AM in a rough neighborhood in Bloomington, IN in the dead of winter, waiting for her drug dealer. Ashley developed an opioid addiction following a devastating soccer injury while she was at her peak in college. While she manages to keep her job at Charlie Cummins Luxury Home Builders, it is probably only because her father is the owner. When her dealer, Danny Williams AKA "D" shows up, both fail to notice the two men on the corner, Sticks and Big G, rival drug dealers. A confrontation occurs and Ashley winds up with a bullet to the face, while the drug-dealing rats scurry away. Detective Sasha Frank gets awakened at home and takes the call for the murder.
He meets up with his partner, Detective Darcie Lyman, and the preliminary evidence points to a drug deal gone awry. Before long, Ashley Cummins is identified and with that knowledge comes the fact that her grandfather is a well-known and well-connected retired judge. Needless to say, the pressure will be on Frank and Lyman to solve this case quickly.
The pair connect with a vice detective named RJ who provides them with a list of potential suspects, known drug dealers in the area where Ashley's car was found, and the three of them split up the list amongst them to cover more ground. While they are able to speak with Danny and Sticks, it is clear that the cops have no concrete evidence and so no one is giving any info up to help (or incriminate themselves).
Ashley's opioid addiction is confirmed by the M.E., but it is clear her father wasn't aware of it, although interviews with her friends confirm she was a bit of a party girl. Her father is obviously devastated, having lost his wife several years earlier, but Judge Cummins is champing at the bit for the police to bring his granddaughter's killer to justice, although his son has asked that he not interfere.
Then a strange thing happens - one of the drug dealers on the list of suspects is run over by a car. Then another is found drowned while on vacation in Florida. Yet another is found dead of gunshot wounds when his apartment is burned down. A dark pattern is forming and Sasha Frank doesn't like where this is going. Only a scant few people knew about the list, so who is executing this plan of revenge? To make matters worse, the gun used to murder Ashley Cummins was used in a gang-related drive-by in Chicago just days after her death. Could this be a gang-related killing or is someone trying really hard to throw Frank off the scent of the real killer? As he and Darcie continue their hunt, things only get more confusing, while the real killer lurks just beneath their noses.
I enjoyed Cold Consequences, but I wasn't driven to tear through it like I am with some books. I think part of the reason is that I never had a clear visual image of any of the characters. They just really weren't described, aside from a brief description of Ashley Cummins. I assumed Sasha Frank was a 50-something white guy, but as for his partner Darcie, I was left to my own imagination other than the fact that she was a young woman and she grew up in the same neighborhood where the murder occurred, and still has family there. I also got the dealers a bit confused in my head, specifically just because they all had nicknames like Sticks, Red Red, and Big G. If I was reading this in an actual book and not on my Kindle, I might have flipped back for clarification, but it wasn't easy to go back and check. I like to build the story in my mind as I read, so when an author doesn't describe the characters well, it makes for a weaker experience, in my opinion.
Overall, I am interested to read the first book in the series, Deliberate Duplicity, to get a better feel for Sasha Frank and his current character, since this book takes place in 2013. Time will tell.
