Kate Alice Marshall (What Lies in the Woods; No One Can Know) finds fresh angles within a common domestic-suspense premise--a young woman warily meeting her new boyfriend's megawealthy family--in her exciting thriller A Killing Cold.
Theodora "Theo" Scott and Connor Dalton are engaged, having fallen quickly and deeply in love after meeting only five months earlier. Now Connor wants Theo to spend two weeks over Christmas at Idlewood, his family's vast estate to which outsiders are seldom invited. Despite her feelings for Connor, there are aspects of Theo's past she hasn't revealed to him: she was adopted at age four, has lingering gaps in her childhood memories, doesn't know what her birth parents named her, and experienced a dark and violent episode as a teenager. Theo worries that staying at Idlewood will be overwhelming, particularly because she's been receiving anonymous text messages. Some warn her about being involved with Connor, while others threaten to expose her secrets. Connor's family's reaction to Theo is mixed, and some accuse her of being a gold digger. As Theo explores Idlewood, she begins to suspect she's been there before and has a connection to the Daltons.
Marshall bestows distinct personalities on each of the Daltons and their longtime caretaker, with the family dynamics propelling the plot. A sense of danger permeates Idlewood as Theo wonders how far the emotionally cold and entitled Daltons will go to protect themselves. Marshall ramps up the tension as she leads A Killing Cold through deliciously unsettling twists and turns. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer