Served Cold: New Thriller by James L’Etoile

The Recruiter by Gregg Podolski Joyce Woollcott: Award-Nominated Myst...

Served Cold: New Thriller by James L’Etoile

Served Cold, a Detective Nathan Parker thriller by James L’Etoile

Guest Post + Excerpt + Book & Author Info![image error]
Don’t miss any blog tour post! Click the link here.

Served Cold by James L’Etoile
Served Cold by James L'Etoile

Detective Nathan Parker

When a cargo trailer packed with dead undocumented migrants is found abandoned at a freeway rest stop, Detective Nathan Parker soon discovers the dead wore identical clothing, were the same age, and weren’t destined for the fields. Parker uncovers a diabolical connection between the migrants and a high-tech computer firm handling sensitive government information—information that could jeopardize the lives of thousands if it got into the wrong hands.

Hands like the gang assassin who killed Parker’s partner, who surfaces drawing them together for a final showdown.

Parker promised his partner revenge as he bled out in Parker’s arms—revenge is a dish best served cold.
Book Details:

Genre: Thriller, Procedural
Published by: Level Best Books
Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Number of Pages: 320
ISBN: Coming Soon
Series: Detective Nathan Parker Novels, Book 3 | Each is a stand-alone novel

To purchase your copy of Served Cold, click any of the following links: Amazon | Goodreads

Guest Post from James L’Etoile, author of Served Cold
What’s in a Series?

Thanks for the chance to guest post here on The Mystery of Writing. I’ll be talking about writing a series as opposed to a single standalone novel. It’s a strange business, publishing. I did what most authors do when the publisher likes the manuscript, offers a contract, and then asks if it could be a series. I said, “Sure. I can do that.” Then after the glow wore off, it was more of a panicked, “How Am I going to do that?”

Served Cold The Detective Nathan Parker series started with Dead Drop. A novel I wrote as a standalone. One of the things I enjoy most when I create a new story are the characters. These are those voices I hear in my head that haunt my waking moments while I’m putting a book together. In this series, some of these characters have been with me now for a few years. They’re getting loud and a little rowdy. They’ve settled in and made themselves comfortable to the point of moving furniture around in my brain. This particular band of characters has started to put down some roots.

Writing a series takes a different set of mental gymnastics. Believe me, that’s the only part of me that engages in all that physical flipping and twisting. I much prefer the twists on the page. A standalone novel requires introducing a new protagonist, a character who will drive the narrative in the story you’re trying to tell. Every author approaches it from a different angle, but for me, the characters I’m going to be spending some time with must be well established before I start drafting that dreaded first page. I’ll know who they are, what they want and what’s holding them back from getting it. Is it fear? Are they lazy? Or is someone preventing them from getting what they are searching for? I’ve got to get in their head before they can appear on the page.

A standalone is tidy. It’s all encapsulated in a single story. The character arcs and plotlines hopefully come to a satisfying conclusion. Tie a bow on it and it’s done.

A series though, hits a little different. At the end of a book, there’s resolution to that story for sure, but because these are such familiar voices, there’s still more meat on the bone. You can introduce a subplot to unravel in a series where you won’t have space to explore it in a single book. Maybe, if your devious, there’s some aspect of the character to reveal that you’ve been holding back. We’re talking a character arc than spans multiple books to support a series arc where you plan to have the character go, grow and develop. And that’s the case with the Detective Nathan Parker series that started with Dead Drop. By the time I finished writing the book, I knew there was more to explore. The answer to the publisher was pretty easy and exciting because I got to go back to these familiar characters and play with new storylines.

In that first book we learn about his survivor’s guilt in the aftermath of his partner’s murder. He’s obsessed over getting justice and revenge on Esteban Castaneda, the man who killed his partner. It clouds his judgement and it nearly costs him his life.

Billie Carson is introduced in Dead Drop as well and she’s turned out to be more of a blast to write than I first anticipated. Billie discovers the bodies hidden in the desert within the opening pages and the reader gets to know a little about her very unusual backstory. Quirky is one way to put it. She’s a loner who chooses to live off the radar, getting by on the junk and recyclables she can find along the desert highways. There’s a reason she lives off the grid—she’s a former coyote who smuggled undocumented people over the border and went into witness protection for testimony against the cartel.

Now in book number three in this series, Served Cold, we have some of these storylines coming to conclusion and new questions emerging. Parker faces off with his partner’s killer and the revenge he had long sought won’t come without a cost. We also learn a dark secret from Billie’s past that threatens the partnership she’s developed with Parker.

Writing a series give me the chance to play with familiar characters and dive deeper into their background, fears, and foibles than I could within a single standalone story. I know these characters and by now, they know me. Readers ask about them. A woman stopped me once and pointed her finger at me, telling me, “You better not hurt Billie.” It’s a sign that something’s clicking along like it’s supposed to in the story mill. People connect with those characters, become invested, and want to know more about them.

I’m happy to report the publisher just contracted for three more books in the Nathan Parker series. Sure. I can do that…

And I speak for mystery readers everywhere, James, we are thrilled you will be coming back with more books in this series!

James L’Etoile uses his twenty-nine years behind bars as an influence in his award-winning novels, short stories, and screenplays. He is a former associate warden in a maximum-security prison, a hostage negotiator, and director of California’s state parole system. His novels have been shortlisted or awarded the Lefty, Anthony, Silver Falchion, and the Public Safety Writers Award. Served Cold is his most recent novel. Look for River of Lies, coming in 2025. He is a Director at Large for Mystery Writers of America and host of the Authors on the Air. You can find out more at www.jamesletoile.com

Read an excerpt of Served Cold:

Chapter 1

State Trooper Chris Yarrow took his patrol assignment on the graveyard shift on Interstate 10 as a kick to the crotch. The desolate stretch of asphalt from Quartzite to Tonopah was as straight a preacher’s spine and as exciting as a Sunday sermon.

Six months. He was given six months on this worthless chunk of highway as punishment. His sergeant warned if he didn’t adjust his attitude and become a team player, Yarrow would be on the outside looking in. Halfway through a shift cruising down the empty westbound lanes of I-10 Yarrow hadn’t pulled over a single speeding motorist. Not because he didn’t want to. There was no one out on this God-forsaken patch of asphalt. Not so much as a headlight in the distance.

He backed off the accelerator at the exit for the Devil’s Well rest stop. Yarrow cruised through the freeway rest stop to ensure the truckers who pulled off for the night didn’t have paid female company from Buckeye. Last week Yarrow turned a van full of young women away as they drove up, much to the disappointment of the lonely truck drivers.

Four eighteen-wheelers parked in diagonal slots. Yarrow’s eye went to a cargo container strapped on a flatbed trailer. The tractor and driver were nowhere to be found.

Yarrow stopped behind the trailer and shown his spotlight on the boxy cargo container. No company markings or brand names adorned the side. The trooper pulled his computer console over preparing to run the trailer’s plates. His light found the empty place where the registration should have been.

Yarrow stepped from his SUV and approached the trailer mounted cargo box, casting his flashlight under and around the steel frame.

“If it ain’t officer buzzkill,” a voice sounded from a truck window to the left.

Yarrow swung his light to the truck cab and recognized the driver as one of the frustrated truckers after the ladies of the night were turned away. His faded and frayed Dodger’s ball cap, more grey than blue, was tucked on his head over a ring of red curls.

“You happen to see who left this trailer?”

“It was here when I pulled in,” he checked his watch, “about four hours ago.”

Yarrow strode to the front of the container, shone his flashlight at the end of the brown steel container. “Something leaking.”

The trucker stepped from his cab hitched his pants up and joined Yarrow.

“Looks like the A/C unit bit the big one.”

Yarrow avoided stepping in the puddle of refrigerant. “I’m gonna have to call the DOT crew out and get this cleaned up before it runs off in the desert.”

“God forbid a coyote gets an upset tummy. Tree huggers like them woke DOT weenies is what makes everything we do more expensive.”

“Why would a driver take the plates and leave his load,” Yarrow asked.

The driver shrugged. “If he saw his A/C was busted, he knew his load got spoiled in this heat. If he’s not a company driver, he could drop and run. Especially if he already got paid for the trip.”

Yarrow circled around the trailer to the rear. The heavy steel hasp was secured with a heavy gauge padlock and a foil seal on the door.

“A customs inspection sticker,” the driver said, pointing at the foil.

“This came over the border? All this way and the driver just drops it?”

The trucker leaned in, an ear close to the container. “Hear that?”

“What?”

“Listen.”

Yarrow leaned closer to the container. “I don’t hear anything.”

Another voice from behind startled Yarrow. “What ya got going on, Buck?”

Buck, the driver in his Dodger’s hat, glanced at the other trucker, “Might be an abandoned load.”

“Saw a guy in a white Kenworth tractor with no trailer burning outta here about five o’clock. Coulda been running into Phoenix to get a mechanic for his A/C.”

“Phoenix? We’re in the westbound lanes.”

“Like I said, the guy was in a hurry, he crossed the center median and headed back east, toward Phoenix.”

“I think he’s hauling bees,” Buck said, straightening his ball cap. “I don’t like bees. I keep me an epi-pen in my glove box.”

The other driver drew close and put an ear against the metal cargo box. “I hear them. I heard about bee rustlers stealing hives. Think deputy Do-Right here broke the case?”

“Would you guys back away. Quit touching the lock, Buck.”

Buck turned the lock loose and put his hands up in surrender.

“It might be evidence.”

“How you gonna know unless you look inside,” Buck said.

Yarrow pondered his options. If he called it in to his supervisor and it turned out to be dead grandma’s patio furniture from Sun City, Yarrow was done. The thin foil customs seal hinted at something more. Smuggled drugs maybe. If Yarrow could break a major drug trafficking case he’d earn his way out of this nighttime purgatory of an assignment.

Sensing Yarrow’s leaning, Buck said, “I got a pair of cutters in my truck.”

Buck trotted over to his rig and opened a tool box and withdrew a pair of heavy bolt cutters with two-foot-long handles.

Yarrow held them, surprised at the weight and forced the lock off the cargo door. He handed the bolt cutters back to Buck. When Yarrow slid the bolt a metallic clang echoed from within.

“You don’t mind, I’ma gonna take a step back. I don’t need no bee stings.”

The buzzing sound increased and Yarrow began to second guess his decision to open the container. He pulled the heavy door aside and a swarm of insects flew from the crack.

Buck screamed and waved his arms against the winged attackers. “I need my epi-pen!”

Yarrow ducked behind the door as the insects flew from their prison. When they lessened, he leaned around and clicked his flashlight inside. He dropped the light on the blacktop and staggered back. The smell was overpowering.

No stolen beehives and no cache of smuggled heroin or fentanyl were waiting for Yarrow. Inside the darkened cargo container, dozens of dead men lay in a heap on the steel floor.

***

James L’Etoile — Author of Served Cold

Served Cold James L’Etoile uses his twenty-nine years behind bars as an influence in his award-winning novels, short stories, and screenplays. He is a former associate warden in a maximum-security prison, a hostage negotiator, and director of California’s state parole system.

His novels have been shortlisted or awarded the Lefty, Anthony, Silver Falchion, and the Public Safety Writers Award. Face of Greed is his most recent novel. Look for Served Cold and River of Lies, coming in 2024.