As a New Yorker, you could not help but be changed forever down to your emotional DNA with the way COVID ravaged the population. The city that never sleeps became a vast wasteland of masked zombies too scared to greet each other in passing, too frightened to come within spitting distance of anyone.
Lisa Fantino – 13 March 2025
The Back Flap
The city that never sleeps, is thrown into a viral-induced coma practically overnight. The empty streets resemble a zombie apocalypse but even the zombies are missing.
Only first responders are brave enough to venture outside, brave like Detective Maggie Flynn. The legacy cop cut her chops hunting a serial killer but now she’s chasing a killer that poses a much wider threat. Detective Flynn must navigate a new partnership to fight crime in a city on the brink of chaos. She’ll need to build trust quickly before the killer sets his sights on her.
Lisa Fantino is a master of suspense. Her almost uncanny insight into the minds of the desperate, depraved and near dead unlocks the mystery in Dead Cold.
About the book
What is the book about?
In the darkness of late winter, in New York City, hospitals are bursting at the seams. People are dying at home for no apparent reason and there are just not enough beds to handle the sick or coffins to bury the dead. It’s the early days of the Covid pandemic and the flu seems to have a vice-like grip on New York when a global pandemic changes life as we know it.
While the pernicious virus sends even the city’s roaches hiding into the darkest corners of the city’s underbelly, a more deadly killer is hiding in plain sight. He is broken in the places where the hurt sneaks in and imprints on his soul, seizing death as an opportunity for someone without a conscience. He simply does not have the mental or emotional capacity to distinguish deliverance from evil versus evil itself.
Detective Maggie Flynn and the Bronx homicide squad know that once you discover any man’s fear, controlling him is child’s play, but will they prevail before too many bodies drop? Fortunately, the clock never runs out on murder.
When did you start writing the book?
In earnest about a year ago but I was outlining it just about the time I finished the second book in the series, The Costa Affair.
How long did it take you to write it?
Almost a year to the day. I started it just after the new year last year and finished it on New Year’s Day 2025.
Where did you get the idea from?
As a New Yorker, you could not help but be changed forever down to your emotional DNA with the way COVID ravaged the population. The city that never sleeps became a vast wasteland of masked zombies too scared to greet each other in passing, too frightened to come within spitting distance of anyone. Yet, while the streets were oddly empty, the cacophony of sirens became overwhelming if you lived in the city or within close proximity to any hospital.
As a writer, I generally channel all of my emotions into my writing and this scenario was no different. Oddly, it didn’t take all that much massaging to convert it into the chase for a serial killer.
Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?
I struggled with wondering whether the plot would hit too close to home, especially for those of us who lost loved ones to Covid. I bounced the idea off of journalists and first responders and they spoke with one voice, advising me unanimously that it was our reality in New York and death and dying was part of that. Whether it was Covid or crime, life’s darkness doesn’t take a holiday.
What came easily?
Placing a serial killer in this deadly environment. For whatever toxic trait prompts anyone to take another’s life, placing them in a deadly, barren landscape at the global epicenter of the pandemic seemed quite natural.
Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?
Good Lord, they are fictious. I have been lucky enough to avoid running into any serial killers. As for everyone else, Detective Maggie Flynn and her squad are bits and pieces of people I know. Some longtime friends say Maggie resembles me in a lot of ways. I’m not sure about that. As an investigative reporter I carried a microphone while she carries a gun and a badge, but I guess we both have strong, inquisitive personalities.
Do you have a target reader for this book?
I get asked this a lot. It’s not for fans of romantic fantasies or young adults, both wildly popular genres. Nor is it for fans of cozy mysteries where the protagonist is a neighborhood biddy and not a professional detective.
This is for fans of crime fiction that makes you think. I think it’s an easy beach read but it will make you think.
How was writing this book different from what you’d experienced writing previous books?
Since Detective Flynn is a contemporary character, meaning she fights crime in the 21st Century, it’s always difficult finding novel ideas for her to explore without people trying to slot the plot into a comparison of any true crime.
This is the first time, after completing one book, that I don’t have a solid idea of where she’ll go next. I do have a few balls in the air but I just may land on writing a children’s fairy book for a break.
What new things did you learn about writing, publishing, and/or yourself while writing and preparing this book for publication?
My inquisitive mind has always been as sharp as a blade as a journalist and an attorney. That’s a great asset when writing fiction. Yet, because this story forced me to relive a lot of recent ugliness, I had to manage those emotions along with the insecurity any writer faces when bringing an idea to life. And don’t doubt for a minute that every writer, in any genre, or any medium, has that insecurity when birthing their next project, book, song or work of art. It’s a very solitary art form for very special people and you can imagine special in whatever context it connotes for you!
End of Interview:
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