Finally out of jail after tangling with a corrupt state Attorney General, Julius Haddock—the retired police chief of tiny Little Penwick, Rhode Island—is drifting through his days with a brand-new private investigator's license burning a hole in his pocket. Bored and restless, he decides to crack open the town's oldest cold case: the thirty-year-old murder of a sixteen-year-old girl who pedaled off on her bike one summer morning to work at the local farm stand… and never arrived. They found her body the next day, but the evidence was thin then and thinner now. As Julius retraces every step the original cops took, re-interviewing family and witnesses, he starts to uncover long-buried fragments of that tragic day.

But digging into the past stirs up more than memories—Julius feels the weight of a town full of secrets pressing down on him, and the personal cost hits close to home when a lunchtime buddy begs him to tail his own wife, a favor that threatens to blow up Julius's own relationship. Small-town loyalty, buried guilt, reluctant justice, and the stubborn pride of a true Swamp Yankee run through every page as the case slowly tightens its grip. Then, just when the pieces begin to align, Julius realizes he's gotten too close to the truth… and someone very much alive is determined to keep the cold case frozen forever—by any means necessary.

In the classic tradition of small-town police procedurals with a strong dose of cold-case mystery, retired-cop-turned-PI grit, and the atmospheric charm (and hidden darkness) of coastal New England, Cold Secrets delivers relentless detection, layered secrets, and the quiet determination of ordinary people facing extraordinary moral choices. Every small town has its shadows—Julius Haddock just forces them into the light.

Don't miss this gripping second installment in award-winning author James Y. Bartlett's Swamp Yankee Mystery series—grab your copy of Cold Secrets today!