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Fritz Malone #2
Cold Day in Hell
In the stew and dazzle of New York City, savvy, irreverent Fritz Malone–who Susan Isaacs called “the perfect balance of noir P.I. and decent guy”–is embroiled in a string of grisly murders that drags him behind the lurid headlines into the tangled affairs of some the city’s most beautiful people and their ugly truths.
When two women linked with charismatic late-night TV personality Marshall Fox are found brutally slain in Central Park, Fox becomes the prime suspect and is charged with the murders. At the tabloid trial, one of Fox’s ex-lovers, Robin Burrell, is called to testify–and is instantly thrust into the media’s harsh spotlight. Shaken by a subsequent onslaught of hate mail, Robin goes to Fritz Malone for help. Malone has barely begun to investigate when Robin is found sadistically murdered in her Upper West Side brownstone, hands and feet shackled and a shard of mirror protruding from her neck.
But it’s another gory detail that confounds both Malone and Megan Lamb, the troubled NYPD detective officially assigned to the case. Though Fox is in custody the third victim’s right hand has been placed over her heart and pinned with a four-inch nail, just as in the killings he’s accused of. Is this a copycat murder, or is the wrong man on trial?
Teaming up with Detective Lamb, Malone delves deeper into Fox’s past, unpeeling the layers of the media darling’s secret life and developing an ever-increasing list of suspects for Robin’s murder. When yet another body turns up in Central Park, the message is Get too close to Fox and get ready to die.
And Malone is getting too close.
In Cold Day in Hell , Richard Hawke has again given readers a tale about the dark side of the big city, a thriller that moves with breakneck speed toward a conclusion that is as shocking as it is unforgettable.
Praise for Richard Hawke’s Speak of the Devil
“Richard Hawke has managed what some writers spend a lifetime trying to He has come up with a character and place that should entertain in countless stories to come.”
–Rocky Mountain News
“Fast-moving, first-rate . . . Hawke’s plot grabs us by the throat. . . . He keeps the suspense mounting.”
–The Washington Post
“[A] bang-bang thriller . . . We are absolutely powerless to stop reading.”
–Chicago Tribune
“Mr. Hawke’s [novel] tours the city . . . with unusual streetwise panache . . . but this isn’t a book that coasts on its urban geography. It lives by its wits, and its wits would work anywhere.”
–The New York Times
“A deftly paced debut that crackles and pops from page 1.”
–Booklist (starred review)
“Thrill-a-minute pacing and inspired plot twists.”
–Newsday
“[An] amazing thriller . . . Hawke’s dialogue is sharp and snappy and the plot moves with all the energy of New York City.”
–Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Hawke razzle-dazzles us with . . . bada-bing narration and quirky, well-drawn characters.”
–The Boston Globe
“[Packed] with a breathless pace and hair-pin turns.”
–South Florida Sun-Sentinel
When two women linked with charismatic late-night TV personality Marshall Fox are found brutally slain in Central Park, Fox becomes the prime suspect and is charged with the murders. At the tabloid trial, one of Fox’s ex-lovers, Robin Burrell, is called to testify–and is instantly thrust into the media’s harsh spotlight. Shaken by a subsequent onslaught of hate mail, Robin goes to Fritz Malone for help. Malone has barely begun to investigate when Robin is found sadistically murdered in her Upper West Side brownstone, hands and feet shackled and a shard of mirror protruding from her neck.
But it’s another gory detail that confounds both Malone and Megan Lamb, the troubled NYPD detective officially assigned to the case. Though Fox is in custody the third victim’s right hand has been placed over her heart and pinned with a four-inch nail, just as in the killings he’s accused of. Is this a copycat murder, or is the wrong man on trial?
Teaming up with Detective Lamb, Malone delves deeper into Fox’s past, unpeeling the layers of the media darling’s secret life and developing an ever-increasing list of suspects for Robin’s murder. When yet another body turns up in Central Park, the message is Get too close to Fox and get ready to die.
And Malone is getting too close.
In Cold Day in Hell , Richard Hawke has again given readers a tale about the dark side of the big city, a thriller that moves with breakneck speed toward a conclusion that is as shocking as it is unforgettable.
Praise for Richard Hawke’s Speak of the Devil
“Richard Hawke has managed what some writers spend a lifetime trying to He has come up with a character and place that should entertain in countless stories to come.”
–Rocky Mountain News
“Fast-moving, first-rate . . . Hawke’s plot grabs us by the throat. . . . He keeps the suspense mounting.”
–The Washington Post
“[A] bang-bang thriller . . . We are absolutely powerless to stop reading.”
–Chicago Tribune
“Mr. Hawke’s [novel] tours the city . . . with unusual streetwise panache . . . but this isn’t a book that coasts on its urban geography. It lives by its wits, and its wits would work anywhere.”
–The New York Times
“A deftly paced debut that crackles and pops from page 1.”
–Booklist (starred review)
“Thrill-a-minute pacing and inspired plot twists.”
–Newsday
“[An] amazing thriller . . . Hawke’s dialogue is sharp and snappy and the plot moves with all the energy of New York City.”
–Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Hawke razzle-dazzles us with . . . bada-bing narration and quirky, well-drawn characters.”
–The Boston Globe
“[Packed] with a breathless pace and hair-pin turns.”
–South Florida Sun-Sentinel
304 pages, Hardcover
First published March 13, 2007
27 people are currently reading
91 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
July 18, 2025
Je n'ai pas accroché. Narration décousue.
August 10, 2007
COLD DAY IN HELL (Priv. Invest.-Fritz Malone—NYC-Cont) - Poor
Hawke, Richard – 2nd in series
Random House, 2007, US Hardcover – ISBN:
First Sentence: On the last day of her life, she took a yoga class.
*** Private Investigator Fritz Malone becomes involved in a case where late-night television host, Marshall Fox, has been accused of serial rape. When additional corpses, with the same M.O., show up while Fox is in jail, it raises the possibility of either a mistrial or a copy-cat killer.
*** Mr. Hawke has let me down with his second book. My first problem was with the characters. Had I not read the first book, which should not be assumed by the author, I would not have had a sense of any of the characters. Even worse, other than the protagonist, Malone, and a police detective, Megan Lamb, there wasn’t a single character about which I cared. My second issue was point of view. Not only did the point-of-view change constantly, but so did the time period which made the story very confusing. My third issue was the pace. The story moved very slowly right up until the very end. I found myself putting the book down and not really caring whether I picked it up again. And then, there’s the plot. It really didn’t make much sense for Malone to have been involved in the case in the first place, nor for the police to have handed so much of the case over to Fritz, and I found the ending wholly unsatisfying. I really found this a very disappointing second novel and certainly wouldn’t rush out to buy the third.
Hawke, Richard – 2nd in series
Random House, 2007, US Hardcover – ISBN:
First Sentence: On the last day of her life, she took a yoga class.
*** Private Investigator Fritz Malone becomes involved in a case where late-night television host, Marshall Fox, has been accused of serial rape. When additional corpses, with the same M.O., show up while Fox is in jail, it raises the possibility of either a mistrial or a copy-cat killer.
*** Mr. Hawke has let me down with his second book. My first problem was with the characters. Had I not read the first book, which should not be assumed by the author, I would not have had a sense of any of the characters. Even worse, other than the protagonist, Malone, and a police detective, Megan Lamb, there wasn’t a single character about which I cared. My second issue was point of view. Not only did the point-of-view change constantly, but so did the time period which made the story very confusing. My third issue was the pace. The story moved very slowly right up until the very end. I found myself putting the book down and not really caring whether I picked it up again. And then, there’s the plot. It really didn’t make much sense for Malone to have been involved in the case in the first place, nor for the police to have handed so much of the case over to Fritz, and I found the ending wholly unsatisfying. I really found this a very disappointing second novel and certainly wouldn’t rush out to buy the third.
November 7, 2008
I think I found this book by browsing through my "read" list, seeing this author and wondering if he had another book. A quick search and, voila, he did.
Good mystery book about a late-night TV show host accused of serial killing. While the guy's on trial (and locked up), two more people are killed in the same gruesome way. Is he innocent or is there a copycat?
Good characters, interesting plot turns and a not very obvious (which is how I like it) ending. I read most of this on planes and airports going to Florida and it was very good at keeping me occupied.
Good mystery book about a late-night TV show host accused of serial killing. While the guy's on trial (and locked up), two more people are killed in the same gruesome way. Is he innocent or is there a copycat?
Good characters, interesting plot turns and a not very obvious (which is how I like it) ending. I read most of this on planes and airports going to Florida and it was very good at keeping me occupied.
January 20, 2018
Page turner. Couldn't put it down.
February 19, 2018
A slow read.
July 6, 2020
TOTALLY CLICHE, starting with the title. Nothing new or worth reading here.
December 17, 2020
Fritz Malone (PI) is at it again in the Big Apple. Better storyline and I continue to cherish the writing style and humor.
June 1, 2021
Brisk and Bracing!
A lot of action makes up for uneven charactertization. The book i s well worth reading.Try it and see for yourself.
A lot of action makes up for uneven charactertization. The book i s well worth reading.Try it and see for yourself.
July 2, 2008
Fans of wise cracking, hard men with hearts of gold style Private Investigators are going to be very pleased to catch up with Fritz Malone in Richard Hawke's second book COLD DAY IN HELL.
Set in New York, COLD DAY IN HELL opens up with famous late-night TV star, Marshall Fox on trial for two grisly murders. Fritz Malone could care less about the trial, but when one of Fox's former lovers is murdered in her apartment using a signature piece from the first two murders, Malone gets interested. Firstly because this killing is just across the street from Malone's girlfriend Margo, and secondly because he knew Robin Burrell was scared - she'd spoken to him twice about threats she had been receiving.
The NYPD were convinced that Fox was the guilty party in the first two murders, but Malone finds himself teamed up with them trying to work out if the Burrell killing is a copycat, or is the wrong man on trial. Digging around in Fox's past discovers an unexpected secret life for this down home, happy go lucky cowboy figure.
COLD DAY IN HELL is set, obviously, in New York, and Malone is a very New York - been there, done that, seen it all - lone wolf type of guy, with just enough contacts on the dark side to do what has to be done. His relationship with Margo is long-term but they rub up against each other, just like many other long-term couples. Whilst Malone is very much the wise cracking PI with a conscience and a heart of gold, luckily that characterisation stops just short of being sanctimonious and is no where near as cliched and, frankly, annoying, as it can be.
The book uses an interesting 3 act kind of layout, with the central act going back to the lead up to the murders after a bit of a cliffhanger at the end of the first act. That method worked in this example, raising the temperature whilst you wondered what the outcome of the cliff hanger would be, and keeping the pace of the book moving whilst filling in the back story. The inclusion of NYPD officers spread the focus. In particular Megan Lamb, just returned to duty after the murder of her life partner, she's struggling with the guilt and her mixed feelings about killing Helen's murderer. This gave the whole story less of a self-involved, self-obsessed, Private Investigator against the world feeling and added another level of interest and, whilst Megan is, in her own way self-obsessed and self-involved, the reasons for that are different / more reflective.
Whilst not normally being much of a fan of that lone wolf style of PI, in COLD DAY IN HELL, it worked. Sure there's a lot of rushing around waving guns in the air, which bores this reader rigid, but the character of Fritz is just human enough to be interesting, the layout of the book was unusual and thus engaging, and the inclusion of focus on people other than just Fritz opened the whole story out, creating an interesting, enjoyable book.
Set in New York, COLD DAY IN HELL opens up with famous late-night TV star, Marshall Fox on trial for two grisly murders. Fritz Malone could care less about the trial, but when one of Fox's former lovers is murdered in her apartment using a signature piece from the first two murders, Malone gets interested. Firstly because this killing is just across the street from Malone's girlfriend Margo, and secondly because he knew Robin Burrell was scared - she'd spoken to him twice about threats she had been receiving.
The NYPD were convinced that Fox was the guilty party in the first two murders, but Malone finds himself teamed up with them trying to work out if the Burrell killing is a copycat, or is the wrong man on trial. Digging around in Fox's past discovers an unexpected secret life for this down home, happy go lucky cowboy figure.
COLD DAY IN HELL is set, obviously, in New York, and Malone is a very New York - been there, done that, seen it all - lone wolf type of guy, with just enough contacts on the dark side to do what has to be done. His relationship with Margo is long-term but they rub up against each other, just like many other long-term couples. Whilst Malone is very much the wise cracking PI with a conscience and a heart of gold, luckily that characterisation stops just short of being sanctimonious and is no where near as cliched and, frankly, annoying, as it can be.
The book uses an interesting 3 act kind of layout, with the central act going back to the lead up to the murders after a bit of a cliffhanger at the end of the first act. That method worked in this example, raising the temperature whilst you wondered what the outcome of the cliff hanger would be, and keeping the pace of the book moving whilst filling in the back story. The inclusion of NYPD officers spread the focus. In particular Megan Lamb, just returned to duty after the murder of her life partner, she's struggling with the guilt and her mixed feelings about killing Helen's murderer. This gave the whole story less of a self-involved, self-obsessed, Private Investigator against the world feeling and added another level of interest and, whilst Megan is, in her own way self-obsessed and self-involved, the reasons for that are different / more reflective.
Whilst not normally being much of a fan of that lone wolf style of PI, in COLD DAY IN HELL, it worked. Sure there's a lot of rushing around waving guns in the air, which bores this reader rigid, but the character of Fritz is just human enough to be interesting, the layout of the book was unusual and thus engaging, and the inclusion of focus on people other than just Fritz opened the whole story out, creating an interesting, enjoyable book.
January 1, 2013
Having read all five of Tim Cockey’s earlier “Hearse” novels, about a wise-cracking mortician who doubles as an amateur sleuth, we have turned to the author’s obviously more serious mystery/thrillers written as Richard Hawke. The first, “Speak of the Devil”, introduced private detective Fritz Malone, a likable and resourceful fellow, who eventually solves a quite complicated set of crimes. In “Cold Day”, Malone is looking into the death of a neighbor girl he barely knew which seems connected to two murders allegedly committed by an infamous late night talk show host. Megan Lamb is the official NYPD detective handling the case, and roughly half the novel revolves around her, and her back story; and her attempts to both solve the crime and “survive” as a lesbian woman in a typically male job. She and Malone pair up in the waning moments of the tale to bring matters to a satisfying conclusion.
We liked the book but note that there remains only one further Hawke novel, “House of Secrets”, which is apparently a political thriller, not another Fritz Malone mystery. We’ll probably pass on that.
We liked the book but note that there remains only one further Hawke novel, “House of Secrets”, which is apparently a political thriller, not another Fritz Malone mystery. We’ll probably pass on that.
March 7, 2008
This is Richard Hawke’s second novel (previously Speak of the Devil) starring NY based P.I. Fritz Malone. Hawke drops us right into the middle of a murder trial. Marshal Fox is a rags to riches story, a wilderness guide in South Dakota spotted by TV producer Alan Lomax and brought back to New York to star in his own late night talk show. Fox is charming, good looking and a complete sensation on late night televeison. Then two women end up dead. One his recently fired producer who was carrying his unwanted love child, the other a pretty young thing he picked up in a Marshal Fox chat room. Did he kill them? All of New York seems to think so but Fritz Malone is not so sure.
March 25, 2011
2nd Fritz Malone book isn't quite as strong as the first. Time passes for some characters, in order to advance the plot, but seems to stand still for the world. Ambitious story, and not unenjoyable, but sloppy. The revelation of the killer is particularly unsatisfying: One clue is presented to the reader and then 30 pages later it's all laid out. Sloppy.
Great characters, and a wonderful narrator's voice.
Great characters, and a wonderful narrator's voice.
June 2, 2015
#2 in the Fritz Malone series.
Fritz Malone, PI and bastard son of former NYC Police Commissioner, wants to find out who killed Robin Burrell, the neighbor of his lover and the ex-lover of the host of a nighttime talk show. The network star is currently on trial for the similar killings of two women he was associated with. Disjointed flashbacks and point of view shifts to that of a lesbian NYPD detective interrupt the narrative flow.
Fritz Malone, PI and bastard son of former NYC Police Commissioner, wants to find out who killed Robin Burrell, the neighbor of his lover and the ex-lover of the host of a nighttime talk show. The network star is currently on trial for the similar killings of two women he was associated with. Disjointed flashbacks and point of view shifts to that of a lesbian NYPD detective interrupt the narrative flow.
November 15, 2009
I read this book in fits and starts, so that may have alterted my enjoyment somewhat. I have enjoyed the Tim Cockey series more. I may try the other book as may be more in the "mood" when I read that one. THis book lacks the humorous parts that I remember from the other series and the other characters are not as enjoyable either. It did have an interesting story line with an unexpected ending.
June 11, 2014
P.I. Fritz Malone works with the NYPD to find a serial killer. The chief suspect is a wildly popular late night TV host because the victims are women who had brief flings with him. Except the murders continue when the TV host is behind bars. Copycat or wrong suspect? Good characters; good mystery. Will read more Fritz Malone.
May 11, 2014
A big disappointment. This was the second book in the Fritz Malone series. Hawke should have stayed with Malone but he chose to bring in one too many characters for my reading enjoyment. I don't care for the jumping from the past to the present without a heads up. From the dead to the when they were alive..The only good scenes were between Fritz and Jigs and they were few and far between.
April 15, 2016
I read Speak of the Devil last week - the first book I've read by this author. I was very impressed and immediately downloaded this one. This one was much less interesting to me. The writer's style was not as smooth, the dialogue was not as crisp and interesting, and the plot was harder to follow. Still, this book is a good read.
January 6, 2012
I doubt I will be going down this author's road again. The components of the story are not new and you can see them in any number of mystery novels and procedural tv crime shows. To employ the author's phrase, "It's life made inconsequential".
November 27, 2010
I am not sure what to say. It was just okay. I really felt it jumped to much. I got lost a few times and had to go back. After Fritz was stab and hurt, the story took a big turn and you lost him. Then Fritz returned. A lot of twists and turns.
April 16, 2016
I had a very difficult time getting interested in this story. It took MANY pages to finally get my attention. Once Cold Day in Hell got my attention I was able to finish the book, that's about all I can say.
October 27, 2008
Good read. I have liked all his lighthearted Tim Cockey 'Hearse' efforts, and this was a real step up!
January 13, 2011
This one wasn't as good as the first one
February 11, 2011
too predictable
February 21, 2012
moves along, Hawke is good escape. Love the Noir aspects
May 26, 2013
Not much to say about this book just other than the fact that it was boring, drawn out and just plain not a good read.
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June 19, 2016I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14038231
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14038231
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews