The Cold Case

by Will Shindler

371 pages, Paperback

Published January 7, 2025

About the author

Will Shindler has been a Broadcast Journalist for the BBC for over twenty-five years, spending a decade working in television drama as a scriptwriter on Born and Bred, The Bill and Doctors.

You can currently find him every weekday on the radio reading the news headlines, whilst writing crime novels in the afternoon. Will has previously worked as a television presenter for HTV, a sports reporter for BBC Radio Five Live, and one of the stadium presenters at the London Olympics.

His debut novel, The Burning Men, will be published by Hodder.

Reviews

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of this book, series, or author prior to receiving this in a Blind Date with a Book mystery gift from my husband. Ideally, I’d probably have read the earlier books in the series first, but I don’t think you need to – I didn’t feel lost but do think I’d have understood the characters better if I had. I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Past and present timelines interwove really well to create a compelling and interesting read and I’d definitely pick up more in the series/from the author.

[Albiotic · Rating 4 out of 5]

For getting back into reading this was an amazing book for me. The trouble I have had with most forms of media is guessing the spoilers before they happen, with this book I had no such problem with the twists and turns coming from a place of logic without being predictable.
The characters were well developed which I enjoyed, having realistic struggles, actions and logic. There was a lot of diversity, with many differences between the characters other than just sexuality, race, etc. Background characters also felt included within the book rather than just forgotten about.
The writing was good, I liked its flow and how much of an easy-read it was. There was subtle foreshadowing with the descriptions of certain things which is nice to look back on.
My critiques really of the book is the lack of description and diversity within the writing. It was harder to imagine certain settings due to the lack of description. There also felt a certain amount of repetitiveness with the word choice; one of my pet peeves with writing is repetitively using “said” which this book is guilty of.
In conclusion this book is a great read; a great example of realistic police work mixed with realistic characters and an unpredictable but logical plot.

[Ruby Pepper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I’ve read a few reviews saying people didn’t want to out this book down unfortunately I did not feel this way. Often I was just bored but the constant moaning about a previous characters death….I understand they died you feel guilty, but every 10 pages do we need to bring it up…?! Also tempted to knock off another star as the author felt the need the mention Brexit - move on a decision nearly 10 years ago do we STILL have to go on about it. I won’t be picking up another from this author.

[Ian Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb, the best of the 5 DI Finn novels to date.

[Valerie Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having never read any of the other books in this series, I started reading last night and finished today. Very much a page turner with lots of twists and turns.