Publication Date: October 8, 2024
In this heart-pounding story of deception, murder, and survival, a former Olympian retreats to the Canadian wilderness for a fresh start, only to find out that the past will always catch up to her.
Julie Adler’s perfect facade is shattered by grief when her husband commits suicide. His death reveals that their luxurious California life was a house of cards, and his secret business dealings have left Julie penniless.
As she strikes out on her own, Julie feels drawn to her old stomping grounds in Banff, a charming and isolated ski town where she once trained for the Olympics. She finds work as a housekeeper at a luxury resort, but just as she starts to piece together a new life, an eccentric guest turns up dead. And Julie, the last person seen in her hotel room, is the prime suspect.
The evidence is stacked against her, but even in the encroaching blizzard, Julie knows her way around these mountains. She just needs to evade the police long enough to find the truth behind the murder…and before the real killer finds her first.
Julie Adler thinks her life is perfect until she finds her husband dead of an apparent suicide. Discovering all their savings have been liquidated sends her fleeing.
In Running Cold, author Susan Walter begins the story in sunny California but shifts it to snowy Banff in Canada. It’s a perfect refuge for Julie, who has trained there in the Olympics.
While she’s welcomed with open arms by an old friend and given a job, she becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation involving a hotel guest. To clear her name, Julie will need to work quickly before it is too late.
Told from multiple perspectives, there’s plenty of angst to fuel the thriller aspect. Everyone seems to be keeping secrets while the body count rises.
Running Cold offers a chilling look into how far someone is willing to go to maintain a pricy secret.
The winner of the (not terribly) prestigious WIFTS screenwriting award for “All I Wish,” the 2018 film she wrote and directed starring Sharon Stone, Susan Walter has recently added “novelist” to an eclectic resume that also includes “failed concert violinist,” “unwatchable TV news reporter,” and “dazed mother to two teenage girls.”
Susan’s first two suspense-thrillers, “Good as Dead” and “Over Her Dead Body” were Amazon First Reads editors’ picks, and both hit number one on Audible across all categories. Her September 2023 release, “Lie by the Pool,” a suspense-thriller about a woman who stows away in a Beverly Hills pool house, was an Audible editor’s pick and debuted in the top ten. Her fourth novel, the action-thriller RUNNING COLD, about an Olympic biathlete falsely accused of murder, will be released on 10/8/24. Her fifth book, LETTERS FROM STRANGERS, is based on her shocking discovery that her father had a secret family, and certain people are going to have a lot of questions for her when that comes out in May 2025.
Because she can’t be alone with her thoughts, she also continues to write for TV and film. She has two TV pilots set up at Canadian broadcasters, and her R-rated girls trip comedy “Babymoon” is currently gunning to go into production in early 2025. Read more about Susan on her website www.susanwalterwriter.com or in her self-indulgent guest column for Talkhouse Magazine.
