Cold Blood

September 29, 1997
If it was La Plante's intention to create a character far removed from her memorable Jane Tennison (of Prime Suspect fame), she has succeeded in this sequel to Cold Shoulder. Where the upright, ambitious Tennison was a refreshing original, Lorraine Page is at first glance a compendium of genre cliches: an ex-cop who left the force after killing a child and watching a beloved partner die; a recovering alcoholic who lost custody of her two daughters; a scarred woman who doubts her capacity to love. Yet, La Plante employs these stock character traits so skillfully that they don't blunt the power of her storytelling skills. Page now heads up a failing PI agency in L.A., aided by a perpetually dieting woman she met at an AA meeting and a still-boozing retired police captain. Just as the outfit is about to fold for lack of work, they luck into a case involving the disappearance of Anna Louise Calley. The daughter of a fading movie queen and a real estate tycoon, Anna Louise, 18, went missing in New Orleans almost a year earlier. Motivated by the promise of a million-dollar bonus if they find her alive or dead, Page and her crew stumble through L.A., and through New Orleans streets full of voodoo practitioners and drug dealers to the rich and famous, an underworld of glitzy sex clubs and devious billionaires with secret agendas. The mystery of what happened to Anna Louise is interesting, but the real suspense concerns whether Page--who finds herself drinking again and in bed with the missing girl's father--will fall apart. It takes a while for La Plante to individualize Page, but once she does, Cold Blood loosens up and flows freely.

Sex, drugs, voodoo, alcoholism, murder, suicide--this tape has it all. Written by the creator of "Prime Suspect," a gritty British mystery series run on PBS, the story follows tough-but-vulnerable investigator Lorraine Paige and two partners on the trail of a missing teenager and a million-dollar reward. The action starts in Los Angeles but quickly shifts to New Orleans, where the humidity is exceeded only by the steamy goings-on. Reader Lorelei King's Southern tones take some of the edge off the obscenities and sordid scenes; other voices grate a bit on the ear. Nevertheless, the urgency of her pace, the dialogue, and the frequent plot twists keep the story moving and the listener absorbed. Occasionally, LaPlante's British origins show through: No one in "the Big Easy" would call athletic shoes "trainers." J.G. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine