The Cold Room
When Nashville detective Taylor Jackson discovers a murder victim posed like a famous painting, she’s drawn into an international manhunt in this bone-chilling thriller by New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison.
After being demoted, Detective Taylor Jackson is fighting to redeem herself at Nashville Metro Homicide when she is called to the scene of a nightmarish new case. A young woman is found starved to death, her emaciated body posed to echo a famous painting.
When the autopsy reveals that the victim was violated postmortem, Taylor’s fiancé, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, recognizes similarities to Il Macellaio (“The Butcher”), a serial killer who has been operating in Italy for years. To further complicate the case, a Scotland Yard detective confirms similar homicides in the UK. But how could the Butcher be operating on two continents?
As the investigation spans from Tennessee to the hills of Tuscany, Taylor and Baldwin must race to find the link before the body count rises—and before whomever is watching Taylor from the shadows makes their move.
Revised edition: This edition of The Cold Room includes editorial revisions.
J.T. Ellison
J.T. Ellison has built her career on uncovering the secrets people hope will never surface. Her novels, spanning psychological thrillers, domestic noir, and crime fiction, thrive on the tension between what is said and what is hidden. With more than thirty books translated into over a dozen languages and millions of copies in print, she has become a familiar name to readers who crave stories where danger lurks in both dark alleys and well-lit kitchens.
Ellison’s path to writing was far from conventional. She studied politics and creative writing before earning a master’s degree in political management, then spent years working in government and the private sector, including a White House appointment and defense contracting. That background sharpened her sense of power, secrecy, and consequence, all of which seep into her fiction. Whether she is writing about a Nashville homicide detective in the Taylor Jackson series, a forensic pathologist chasing truth in Dr. Samantha Owens, or globe-spanning intrigue in A Brit in the FBI (co-written with Catherine Coulter), her stories pulse with authenticity grounded in meticulous research.
Taylor Jackson
Taylor Jackson consists of nine primary books, and includes two additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
