Cold-Blooded: A True Story of Love, Lies, Greed, and Murder

by Carlton Smith

From a New York Times–bestselling The story of the murder of a California attorney at the hands of the lethally cunning wife he never doubted. A wealthy and well-connected legal ace and the proud owner of a champion show horse, Larry McNabney had every reason to love his life. But when he disappeared in September 2001, his wife, Elisa, claimed he joined a cult.   When Larry’s body was found in a shallow grave three months later, Elisa was already gone. In a red convertible Jaguar, her brown hair dyed blond, Mrs. McNabney was speeding toward a new life in Florida—and a brand new identity.   Who was Elisa McNabney? Beautiful, seductive, and ruthless, she had thirty-eight aliases and a rap sheet a mile long. Carlton Smith, coauthor of the true crime classic The Search for the Green River Killer, reveals one shocking surprise after another in this harrowing tale of broken vows and deadly betrayal.  

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, Audiobook, Mystery, Adult, Dark

364 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 30, 2004

Reviews

[Alisi ☆ wants to read too many books ☆ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't like. This was much longer than it needed to be. This was partially because the author insisted on including his thoughts and speculations on the case. These because incredibly repetitive towards the end. There was one fact, the possible dates of her poisoning him (three days), that was repeated like 20 times in one short chapter. I wanted to scream at his editor.

Another thing I didn't like was his portrayal of Elisa. He actually said that he couldn't help but love her and it's like -- dude, why? He actually listed her as one of the victims. This woman wasn't tragic. She was beautiful, sure, but she wasn't tragic. She didn't come from a broken or bad home. She made mistakes and basically ripped off literally everyone, but her actual kids. She couldn't stop ripping people off, even on the run. And she killed someone! She married this ubber wealthy and successful man, and all she had to do was not rip people off and her life would've been set. Parish the thought of that though! But she's beeeeeautiful so it makes her traaaaagic.

God, her poor kids and his poor kids. Even Sarah was more too pity that that monster. FFS.

This is why I hate author's opinions in true crime books. It always sets me on edge.

[Richard Karns · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a lot of true crime and this one I found hard to put down. I also found a TV Movie called The Lies My Mother Told Me which is based on the story and rented it from NetFlix. I haven't watched it yet but from what I've gathered from reading reviews it follows the story very closely.

[MM Suarez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like to read true crime now and then but unfortunately this one was just meh for me, I think for the most part because it was longer than it needed to be, the relationship between two friends was interesting to me, I'm always puzzled by some people's ability to get others to go along with things that they would otherwise never contemplate.

[Deirdre · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was pretty tough to get through. While the telling of the crime was thorough (at times much TOO thorough; I could have done without a 45-minute history of Reno, Nevada), the book lacked any kind of excitement or suspense. At the time this book was written, I’m assuming this case had been all over the news. That’s the only reason I can think of why the author would have told us EVERYTHING up front. Who was murdered, who killed them, how they killed them, and what happened to the killer, were all disclosed within the first three chapters or so. As someone who had never heard of this case before, that was extremely disappointing, and made the book exceptionally tedious to read. I wish I had simply just read the Wikipedia page about this murder rather than finish the book.

[Royce Ratterman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good overview of the events and crime, filled with interesting details and information.
Read for personal interest, having known the Dutras for years and years.
Sarah is out of prison... and life goes on.
I found this book's contents helpful and inspiring.
Overall, a good book for the researcher and enthusiast.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very well written, and the organization of the story was terrible. Repetitive, with spoilers that aren't explained until later in the book, but certainly not in chronological order. Also, lazy in the research. A mess.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

** 4 stars**
I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did!

This is my second Carlton Smith novel, the first of which I did not particularly enjoy. This came up as an Audible Premium suggestion so I downloaded it as one of my included novels. I had never heard of the case
And decided to give it a go.

I was hooked from the start. I loved the level of detail the author included, particularly about the history of Reno (which probably wasn't necessary to the story). This story was well told from several different angles and tracked the victim and one of the perpetrators throughout the course of their lives.

Still not sure how much Sarah had to do with the kidder, but I think she probably got what she deserved. I hope there was some follow up with the financial fraud as well. Elisa was a terrible, manipulative person who should have been held accountable for her actions long before she ever met Larry.

Great read :)

[Shatika Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

thorough

This book was well researched and beautifully written. If I had read this book earlier, the content would have made me want to follow the story from the beginning. I’m very sad that Laren took the easy way out by committing suicide, leaving the other party with the weight and consequences of something she hadn’t done alone. If you ask me, I believe Laren was definitely manipulated her into staying silent.

[Szahra]

DNF @ 19%
Not interested enough in the case to continue. Too much time spent on the history of irrelevant things. Several hours in and no mention of the case or its details? Sorry, but I have other audiobooks queued that I'm more excited to get to.

[Michelle Boyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

With a decent editor, this book could have easily chopped out about 100 pages and would have been the better for it. This is an interesting case in which a woman named Laren spends her entire life going around stealing from people, ends up marrying a semi-well-off lawyer named Larry, bleeds him dry, then gets her 'best friend' to help her kill him. That is, of course, the quick summary. While I do like lengthy novels and backstory, this one just simply had too much repetitive backstory and uninteresting details to keep the pace going.

Laren/Elisa is an interesting killer because she's so engrained in Larry's life. Before Larry marries her, it is actually revealed to him that she has skimmed around $140,000 out of a legal account he maintains for cases. That is not chump change! Rather than become furious, fire her, have her sent to jail, and try to get that money back he... marries her? Honestly, I don't know how all of the terrible women out there get away with this type of crap AND get married to the guy AND then continue to destroy their life. In fairness, this was wife #5 for Larry, so clearly Larry has his issues. Eventually, the legal practice is getting ground into the dirt (again, the stealing money could be part of this problem, duh) and suddenly Larry and Elisa are in the horse showing business. It is an expensive business (ask my horses who are expensive and are retired from doing anything other than being cute) and again, suddenly there are all kinds of hints that Elisa is stealing from Larry. He does nothing.

Then, Larry goes missing on September 11, 2011. I know, a lot was going on that day, so maybe Larry really did just take off to go "join a cult." Alright, when you plan to murder someone and your excuse is they just left... maybe make it more plausible. He left to retire to the Bahamas. He left because he was enraged about the terrorist attacks and said he was going to help in New York. He decided to take up sailing around the world. Very, very low on that list of "possibly believable" things is... "he said he was going to join a cult." That's just... oddly specific in a way that seems false. Anyhoo... no one is surprised when Larry's body is later found semi-buried (great job ladies, not) in a vineyard. It isn't hard to get both Sara (Elisa's 'best friend') and Elisa talking.

Phew. This one is a roller coaster that could have been told in far fewer pages and still been entertaining.

I do think that Smith is a good writer, in the sense that the parts she nails, she nails well. However, about halfway through the book you start to see a lot of repetition entering the chapters. You end up seeing a lot of speculation. It just loses steam and its really, really hard to get into the story.

After reading this, I did a quick internet search for more information (since this case was not familiar to me) and found that there is more coverage of this story on shows like Dateline and such, and they do a swifter job of summarizing everything.

Would definitely give this author another chance. Just found that this book had some unnecessary filler that bogged up the pleasurable true-crime reading adventure I was on.

[WM PHILHOWER RN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read

Good reading, but slow with too many details. This review format is a PITA , x 3 .


with details

[Sue Tuza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting!

The story was really incredible. It’s hard to believe this is a true story rather than a fictional one. The book was well-written and the author took a very complicated story and made it easy to understand. A fascinating look into some very twisted lives.

[Lorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive account of a preventable tragedy

Very well written account concerning a chain of events that might never have happened had the courts, probation offices and law enforcement done their job properly to begin with. This woman slipped through the cracks and the agencies that should have been there to prevent it, fell completely short.
Smith wrote a comprehensive account of the tragedy that befell those who were unfortunate enough to remain in the site of this selfish and greedy woman.

[Ashlyn Thibodeaux · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting

I enjoyed the story. I really don’t care for how the point of view kept jumping. Also how you learn of what happened prematurely. I never cared for a story written not in order of the actual timeline of events. Having said that, it is still an interesting read.

[G. Goodson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Confusing !

If you like reading the same thing over and over, just in different chapters, this is the book for you. Who called this guy a writer? Not worth the $1.99 price.

[Roger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could have been written in about 300 less pages. Smith, the author, rambles on & on & on - mostly a lot of “fluff & fill” that is totally unnecessary in telling the story of this murder. As many people wrote in their reviews, Smith repeatedly repeats his repeats……….in other words, he rambles on about nothing simply filling up page after page. He must get paid by the word.

Actually, all the protagonists in this book are pretty much worthless. Elisa McNabney whose real name is Laren Renee Sims has been a con artist and grifter most of her life and then “grows up” to embezzle her husband, Larry McNabney out of most of his money........ and then kills him by feeding him a lethal dose of horse tranquilizer. Oh yes, a real jewel, this one! But actually one can’t say a whole lot of good for Larry McNabney either. A shady lawyer who becomes a drunk and a drug addict. And finally there is Sarah Dutra - a mindless nit-wit who becomes an an unwittingly accomplice of Elisa (because she likes going shopping, spending Elisa’s soon to be dead, husband’s money that she and Elisa are embezzling from his law firm.) Sound like a convoluted sentence……..
It's a challenge for a reader to keep track of all the names, places and people the author pulls into this book. Like other readers / reviewers report, Carlton Smith constantly repeats himself which drags out the book unnecessarily and wears down the reader.

Yeah, well this writer writes a convoluted story! If anything this book helped to put me to sleep at night!

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok. They gave very fine detail about the fraud so the murder seemed like a side story. The audio was 9 hours long and they didn’t get to the murder until about hour 7. And the information about the case and the investigation were far less detailed then what essentially was background information. The book talked a lot about what was going on with the law firm and the money as if that information was directly related to or influenced the murder and it really didn’t. Those were facts and events that happened prior to, but not necessarily the cause of or motivation for the crime. So I felt like it could have been condensed some in favor of focusing on the relationship between “Elisa” and Larry. You don’t find out why she did it until the end when Elisa is caught and confesses. And even then you aren’t clear on the motivation because she seemed to have been lying during the confession, or at the least minimizing what she did and kind of making herself the victim. To be fair, the only people who seemed to really know the truth of their relationship dynamic were Elisa and Larry and they were both dead by the time the case went to trial. So all the information came from financial records and the people who observed or were victims of the fraud Elisa was committing.

[A.D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A true crime book that spends too little time with the victim and too much with the killers. The author professes to believe that Elisa and Sarah are both victims. This may be true; Elisa had clear mental health struggles that resulted in her taking her own life after the offence. Sarah's account states that she was not the main perpetrator and made "many poor choices" as a result of being blinded by wealth in the City of Industry.

There were several mentions of Elisa being the victim of domestic violence by her husband and this was stated as her main motivation. This is unsubstantiated, but it is often impossible to know the true life a couple lives.

What makes this a poor account of the murder is the strange sympathy offered by the author to the convicted and a nagging sense that he did not know how to present this case to the public. In the About the Author, one finds the author had many years of journalism dedicated to the search for the Green River Killer and published other books on true crime.

One feels that the author may be biased by the perpetrators being women and creates needless conflict in the book by offering his speculations and biased opinions.

[River Scott Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've finished listening to the Audiobook Cold Blooded by Carlton Smith and I rate it 5 stars.

A wealthy and well-connected legal ace and the proud owner of a champion show horse, Larry McNabney had every reason to love his life. But when he disappeared in September 2001, his wife, Elisa, claimed he joined a cult.

I've watched a few documentaries about Elisa Mcnabney and Sarah Dutra but this audiobook went onto much more detail and I found out alot more about both women, Elisa Mcnabney has been committing crimes from the day she was born, each time she was arrested for a crime or parole violation her lawyer managed to get her out of prison.

She's a vindictive manipulative greedy woman, Sarah Dutra is a compulsive liar a woman who got sucked it by the money and flash cars Elisa gave her, I enjoyed listening to this and to know more about the case. I would highly recommend this book to all true-crime lovers.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Imani · Rating 2 out of 5]

The way this was written, the chronology of events was really tough to follow.
It also reads more like a report, than a story. A clinical recounting of facts, rather than a deep dive into very backgrounds of Larry, Elisa and Sarah, who all made devastating life-altering choices that I am not sure this retelling explains.

Is it that no-one knows the answers, or simply that the writer did not uncover them, during whatever research he did?

[Lacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good, in-depth look at the murder of Larry McNabney. At times it was a bit unnecessarily repetitive and probably could have been shorted quite a bit, but nonetheless It was an interesting listen. I also wish we could have learned more about what Larry’s personality was really like when he was alone with Elisa. She obviously some pretty serious claims about his treatment of her and it was never really clear if she was making it all up or not.

[Michelle Tackabery · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting case, told completely backwards. I believe Smith attempted to create suspense and a surprise ending, but the perpetrator was visible through his clumsy prose because he kept her in plain sight; of course she's on the cover of the book as well. Sigh. I'm done reading this kind of crap. I hope.

[Nicki Kendall · Rating 2 out of 5]

⭐⭐An interesting read about a crime I wasn't familiar with. It's always interesting what motivates people to kill and how they justify their crimes. It amazed me that the people concerned thought they would get away with it. #carltonsmith #coldbooded #tea_sipping_bookworm #goodreads #greatreads #truecrime #litsy#amazonkindle #bookqueen #bookstagram #storygraph

[Robert D Grady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gripping Tale and Attention Grabbing

It was hard to put this book down. The story was very well written, background and details were interesting, and the overall story was gripping on what happened. It's scary on how little you actually can know someone or in this case don't really know them. If you enjoy true life crime stories, you will enjoy reading this author.

[Jaymin Ewens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Choose Better Heroes

This book started slow, but it picked up speed quickly as the stories started to unfold. I had never heard of this case, but all I could think all the way through was things could've been so different for Larry, Laren, and Sarah if they'd all chosen better heroes and better paths. Make good choices kids and remember your actions have consequences.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing was bland and repetitive, and the presentation of the same facts over and over confused much of the issue with jumping between timelines. I only finished because I wanted to know the outcome of the case, not because I was enjoying the book itself.

[Ann Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

TMI: There are at least three books within this title.

I liked the story but I did not appreciate the detailed accounts of every major/minor character ... down to and including the classes they took in high school and college!

You will find yourself skipping pages also 😴

[Robi A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping Local Headlines Back Then

Residing in the Reno area during the time of This McNabney Murder, I read this with interest. Many facts I had never heard before and very interesting. Great editing and pace.

[Paul Mashack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an audiobook, and maybe my attention was diverted while working and maybe I wasn't able to follow the full story. Maybe I need to give it another whirl and pay closer attention. As some who lived in Reno for a year, I did enjoy learning about the city's history.