Cold Heart: A Novel [Hardcover]

Lynda La Plante (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2, 1999

Having established her reputation with the enormously successful, two-time Emmy Award-winning television series Prime Suspect, author/screenwriter Lynda La Plante enhanced it with her more recent popular CBS TV miniseries, Bella Mafia. The same unbeatable storytelling power she brings to her films is the engine that drives her new thriller, Cold Heart, from its disturbing beginning to its shocking climax.
        
A single gunshot into a Beverly Hills swimming pool ends the life of movie mogul Harry Nathan, a man with so many enemies--including a widow and two ex-wives--that the challenge for PI Lorraine Page at first seems to be the surfeit of suspects. Newly established as an independent private investigator, Lorraine comes to the case hungry and determined to succeed--but Harry Nathan's death is the beginning, not the end, of a trail of lust and conspiracy leading to the darkest corners of the international art world. A sordid trail of video evidence implicates other leading Hollywood figures in the case, while Lorraine finds her own investigations hampered by the personal intervention of new police chief Jake Burton, a man who appears to know everything bad about her but still seems determined to know more.
        
As the failures of her past come back to haunt her, Lorraine finds that solving this murder is no longer just a job, it's about recapturing her own self-worth. A first-rate crime story, a love story, and more--it's precisely the kind of superior suspense novel we've come to expect from Lynda La Plante, one of the preeminent originators of realistic crime drama.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Lorraine Page, heroine of Cold Shoulder and Cold Blood, returns with a new face, new wardrobe, new office, new assistant, new dog, and new love--all but the last, L.A. police lieutenant Jake Burton, courtesy of a big bonus earned on her previous case. Lynda La Plante, creator of the PBS series Prime Suspect, puts Lorraine right in the middle of a murderous art swindle scheme. When Harry Nathan, a charismatic producer, director, and collector, is murdered in his Brentwood swimming pool, Lorraine's hired to find out who killed him and then to track the missing art or the millions it's been turned into. Which of Harry's wives had the most to gain from his death? Why is faded ex-movie star Raymond Vallance, Harry's closest friend, still hanging around? Is it something to do with the porno tapes Harry's been blackmailing him over, or was he involved in the swindle, too? It would take a miniseries to unravel all the mcguffins and red herrings La Plante puts in Lorraine's--and the reader's--way. There's the accidental death of her new assistant, Decker--but Lorraine's too busy with her new lover to connect it to the Harry Nathan case. And the attacks on her own life--is there someone from her past seeking vengeance for something she did when she was a cop? Fans of her two previous Lorraine Page suspense novels won't want to miss this one. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

Featuring the sleazy Hollywood denizens that La Plante depicts so well, this follow-up to Cold Blood and Cold Shoulder, though enjoyable reading, suffers from a flurry of plot coincidences and an unsatisfying ending. Ex-cop Lorraine Page (last seen in Cold Blood, 1997) is fresh out of surgery and rehab when she gets the first call at her new detective agency. Tinseltown sex kitten Cindy Nathan has found the body of her porn filmmaker husband, Harry, in his Beverly Hills pool and asks Page to prove she didn't do it. All evidence points to Cindy, but Lorraine weeds through the good, the bad and the really nasty in the deceased's circle of ex-spouses and scammed partners, and digs up a private video collection that makes everyone a suspect in wanting him dead. A visit to the police station ignites romance between Page and the new captain, Jake Burton, but few leads on the case. Then an art scam surfaces and Page is hired to track Harry's missing art collection, the bulk of his estate. She visits Harry's surviving first wife, a reclusive feminist artist living on Long Island, and uncovers hot leads, more death and lethal danger that follows her back to the West coast. La Plante's plotting is ragged with loose ends and the novel's conclusion is as familiar as scrambled eggs. But her leads are two raw nerves in search of a synapse and La Plante makes romantic sparks fly between them like few writers can. Agent, Esther Newberg. Author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 322 pages
• Publisher: Random House (March 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375500049
• ISBN-13: 978-0375500046
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,130,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars La Plante, how could you?, May 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Cold Heart: A Novel (Hardcover)

Linda LaPlante had a good thing going and blew it. Lorraine Page was a real and fascinating character, leaving the reader happily, although impatiently, waiting for the next book. In Cold Heart, the third in the Page series, as soon as Lorraine meets Jake Burton you know things are moving too fast and the plot begins to really ring false. Linda LaPlante clearly wanted to move the story along as quickly as possible and bring the series to an end. And what an end! Trite, awkwardly written, almost painfully unbelievable and a slap in the face to her dedicated fans.

If you care about Lorraine Page, DO NOT READ Cold Heart...she deserves a better ending. A thoroughly disappointing book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Warning - spoilers, December 19, 2002

By 

Repairmanjack "rationalcoach" (The Beach) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cold Heart: A Novel (Hardcover)

The first book in the Lorraine series, Cold Shoulder, was darn good. Great characterizations, good plot. The second, 'Cold Blood', was not as good, but still very readable. 'Cold Heart' went straight downhill. The plot was haphazard, the characterizations were mediocre. Lorraine lost a bit of her sparkle and if I hadn't read the first two books earlier, I would have found her fairly uninteresting. However, it was the ending that made this book horrible. You do NOT kill off your heroine. Sure, it can happen in real life, but this isn't real life. We read books and go to movies to see what life could and should be - and killing off someone like Lorraine, who has finally succeeded in her struggle to pull her life together, sends a message that life is hopeless. There was not even an attempt at a noble purpose in her death.

I've never given away an ending of a book before, but this one deserves to be exposed. Shame on Ms LaPlante. My advice - don't bother reading this book and allow a successful Lorraine to live on in your mind, as someone to respect and admire.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MY HEART IS NOW "COLD"!!, November 1, 2001

By 

Nancy Martin (Pennsylvania (orig. NY)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cold Heart: A Novel (Hardcover)

I've so enjoyed the first two books in this series, Cold Shoulder and Cold Blood, that it was actually exciting for me to begin this one in the hopes that Lorraine Page is still on the right track towards putting her life back together. When Cold Blood ended, Lorraine and her partners had just received a million dollar bonus for solving their last case. This installment begins with Lorraine spending some of that money getting new office digs, a new car, some new clothes and waiting for the phone to ring in her private investigation agency. Her assistant Rosie has been replaced by Decker since Rosie and Rooney are still honeymooning in Europe. Fans of this series were delighted when Rosie found love in Cold Blood - how ironic.

The phone finally rings at Page Investigations beginning this new adventure into the world of movie producing, pornography, art theft and a possible love interest for Lorraine. The appearance of Jake Burton, as the new chief of detectives, will add some spice to the series not only in the police department but in Lorraine's apartment as well. As she tries to find out who really killed Harry Nathan, all the supporting characters in Harry's world begin to die as well. As his estate travels from one ex-wife to the other, Lorraine will also travel to the Hamptons and New Mexico in an effort to tie all the loose ends together.

While Lorraine is out of town, many things will be going on behind the scenes back home in LA. Rooney and Rosie have returned from their honeymoon and come up with some startling evidence that might bring Lorraine's past demons back to the forefront endangering her life.

Cold Heart is definitely a perfect title for this book as my heart was cold as I read and cried through the last few pages. I have only one thing to say to the author - How Could You?