“Little Stolen Memories” by Cheryl Bradshaw is one of her Georgiana Germaine mysteries, and it was hard to put down.
Georgiana Germaine and her assistants, Simone Bonet and Lilia Hunter, run a detective agency that specializes in cold cases. Life hasn’t been easy for Georgiana, but she’s now married to the charming Giovanni. His background is murky, but he is totally committed to Georgiana. She’s also especially close to her widowed father.
When Cora Callahan walks into her office, Georgiana is amazed. Twenty years ago, Cora and five of her closest friends had planned a fun, final weekend at her parents’ cabin. Aubree and Jackson and Brynn and Aiden were already couples. Cora hoped to reveal her true feelings to Owen, but she never got the chance. By midnight, five of the six teens were dead.
Only Cora survived but she has few clear memories of what happened. Now she has returned to Cambria, California, with recent memories and hopes of finding the person who murdered her friends. Cora also feels that the killer is still in the area, but survivor guilt makes her believe she’s still a target.
Cora explains that the group hadn’t even settled in at the cabin when Owen stepped out to grab his glasses from the car. When he didn’t return, the others went to find him, but they didn’t return either, so Cora went to check. She was hit on the head and passed out. Hours later, Cora woke up beside Jackson’s dead body. She managed to get into the cabin and call 911.
The police did their very best, but the only clue was a dented baseball bat near a nearby cabin. No footprints, fingerprints or DNA. Soon, the case went cold, and Cora moved far away from Cambria.
Since Georgiana’s stepfather is the retired chief of police, she goes to him first. To her surprise, he not only remembers the case but kept a copy of the entire investigation. Her mother doesn’t want him involved, fearing he’ll have another heart attack, but Harvey insists that the stress of not solving the case is far worse.
Before she knows it, San Luis Obispo, Police Chief Foley and semi-retired Detective Whitlock are included on the case. She’d rather work alone but knows when to play nice.
Cora’s yearbooks yield information about the social lives of the six friends. She soon finds that the group tended to be bullies. One of their targets was Xander Thornton. Xander was a gentle giant who had been held back a couple years, so he was older than the other high school students. When interviewed, he admitted having a fierce temper and said the hazing came from all but Cora.
When he retaliated with prank phone calls, the group humiliated Xander in a public park. Xander refused to identify who did it. His older brother was furious and wanted the teens punished. Georgiana sees that he is still angry about what they did to Xander, but Xander put it behind him long ago.
Next up is Danny. He was renting a cabin near where the murders took place, and the bat was found on that property. Georgiana knows that Danny is innocent and has a pretty good idea of who the killer is, but she needs Danny’s help to pin things down.
Piece by piece, Georgiana and her team along with Harvey and Whitlock put together a true picture of what happened that fateful night. Picking up the tiny threads, Georgiana identifies the killer and manages to draw him out. The trap is good, but the killer is cunning, and it will take the whole gang to end his reign of terror. Even after he is caught, no one can understand how a small prank could cause enough anyone to commit multiple murders.
AT A GLANCE
Book: Little Stolen Memories (Georgiana Germaine, Book 9)
Author: Cheryl Bradshaw
Publisher: Cheryl Bradshaw
Year published: 2024
Number of pages: 220
Teen murder mystery solved as a cold case
