Britt Montero

A crime reporter for a major Miami newspaper, Cuban-born Britt Montero practically sleeps with a police scanner by her bedside. When a high-speed police chase leads to the death of a black football hero, Britt discovers that what seems like an open-and-shut case is actually an intricate web of racially charged violence. As the city she loves explodes into a major riot, Britt is caught up in life-threatening events that bring the case to a final shocking twist.

On the police beat for her Miami newspaper, Cuban-born Britt Montero has a lot on her hands. She's investigating a series of bizarre deaths involving sex, electrocution, and freshly poured concrete. As if that isn't enough, there's the long-unsolved murder of a young girl that may implicate the frontrunner in the governor's race. And at the same time, she's on the trail of a serial rapist-who targets her in retaliation for her stories . . .

A mother and child are the recent victims of a carjacking followed by a fatal hit-and-run. Miami crime reporter Britt Montero witnesses the tragedy-and relentlessly pursues the story. But at the same time, trouble lurks in the newsroom. A new, ambitious reporter covets Britt's job, and Britt begins to suspect that her rival's "breaking news" stories may not be what they seem. As she investigates, Britt herself becomes the prime suspect in a shocking murder. Faced with losing more than just her job, Britt is left fighting the most desperate deadline of her life.

When Miami crime reporter Britt Montero reports a missing teenager, she discovers that the case may be related to a string of unsolved disappearances. As Britt delves into the baffling case, an old mystery opens new wounds: she unexpectedly meets two men who knew her deceased father-who was executed long ago in a Cuban jail. Through them, Britt learns that he left a diary identifying the man who betrayed him. But the diary isn't easily possessed: Anyone who finds it seems to be marked for murder. At the height of a terrifying category five hurricane, Britt needs to face the man who betrayed her father in order to uncover more than one truth, but her hunger for justice may turn her into the next victim.

A movie star comes to Miami-and mayhem ensues-in this crime thriller by an Edgar Award finalist. Crime reporter Britt Montero had to shoot a man to save her own life, and the memory of it is tormenting her. So when a major Hollywood actor strides into the newsroom, hoping to do research for the character he portrays, the seemingly cushy job is given to Britt in the hope that it will help her recover from her traumatic experience. But the assignment turns out to be not so much fun: An obsessed madwoman stalks the star, and mysterious mishaps, accidents, and deaths push him and Britt closer together. Both are menaced by the stalker-or perhaps, by someone else who is determined to sabotage the film and murder its leading man . . .

Being a crime reporter amid the sun and sin of Miami is a full-time job, one that Cuban-born Britt Montero does better than anyone else. But when you get that close to the criminal underworld, things have a way of sucking you in. In these five novels of suspense, New York Times–bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Edna Buchanan sets her heroine loose on some of the most highly charged crimes in Miami, and reminds readers that you don't necessarily have to live to make the front page . . .

While attempting an arrest, a sheriff is slain by an enigmatic young woman who promptly vanishes into the northern Florida landscape. As the story comes over the wire, reporter Britt Montero is intrigued. Few copkillers escape so easily. The murders continue. Men are lured into sex by the same woman, their lifeless bodies dumped half-naked in ditches, woodlands and along the road, their cars, cash, and valuables gone. The murderer, who leaves lipstick traces on the bullets she uses-slugs that blossom into flower-shaped blades designed to maim-is swiftly dubbed the Kiss Me Killer. Tracking the killer's path, Britt senses it will lead to Miami, sweltering through the hottest summer on record. When a top politician tastes the killer's kiss of death, leading to a media frenzy, the story belongs to Britt and quick reader reaction comes-from the killer. They open a chilling dialogue, and the body count mounts as the bad and beautiful serial murderer decimates the hard partying South Beach scene. The mutual fascination between killer and reporter builds into an explosive face-to-face meeting that turns deadly as Britt begins a terrifying odyssey through the Sunshine State's dark heart, in the company of the murderer. On the road, on the run, a young father is brutally slain, his small child is kidnapped, and the truth behind this bloody spree is exposed in a shocking revelation. The question is: will Britt survive to write it?While attempting an arrest, a sheriff is slain by an enigmatic young woman who promptly vanishes into the northern Florida landscape. As the story comes over the wire, reporter Britt Montero is intrigued. Few copkillers escape so easily. The murders continue. Men are lured into sex by the same woman, their lifeless bodies dumped half-naked in ditches, woodlands and along the road, their cars, cash, and valuables gone. The murderer, who leaves lipstick traces on the bullets she uses-slugs that blossom into flower-shaped blades designed to maim-is swiftly dubbed the Kiss Me Killer. Tracking the killer's path, Britt senses it will lead to Miami, sweltering through the hottest summer on record. When a top politician tastes the killer's kiss of death, leading to a media frenzy, the story belongs to Britt and quick reader reaction comes-from the killer. They open a chilling dialogue, and the body count mounts as the bad and beautiful serial murderer decimates the hard partying South Beach scene. The mutual fascination between killer and reporter builds into an explosive face-to-face meeting that turns deadly as Britt begins a terrifying odyssey through the Sunshine State's dark heart, in the company of the murderer. On the road, on the run, a young father is brutally slain, his small child is kidnapped, and the truth behind this bloody spree is exposed in a shocking revelation. The question is: will Britt survive to write it?

A chance encounter with a stranger changes the life of reporter Britt Montero forever. The encounter is at Miami's morgue, where the unidentified stranger lies dead. His unusual old scars capture her curiosity-the dead man clearly had a tale to tell. This thief, who was accidentally electrocuted, may be the key that unlocks the long-sought secrets of a sensational cold murder mystery unsolved for more than fourteen years. Sunny and Ricky, teenagers on a Christmas Eve first date, were abducted, a shocking crime that was never solved despite a gigantic manhunt, a huge reward, and an outraged community. Frustrated police called the lack of leads eerie. Unnatural. Against all the laws of homicide and human nature. Now Britt wants the story, and she isn't the only one seeking answers. Sunny survived, the lone witness to that terrible night so long ago. But the reclusive Ice Maiden, now an artist and sculptor estranged from her wealthy family, is not talking and the killer's trail vanished long ago, like footprints in melting snow. Cold Case Squad Sargeant Craig Burch wants the killer. But as the Miami News reporter and the veteran homicide cop investigate the old outrage, they learn that sometimes the cost of justice is too high. When you start to turn over rocks, something ugly sometimes slithers out. Monstrous evil from the past emerges to overtake a whole new generation of innocent victims as deadly passions are reawakened and mortal fears resurface. For Burch, whose elite unit breathes new life into cold murder cases, the investigation strikes too close to home, reigniting his own private obsessions. And Britt, in the wake of national tragedy, is haunted, both awake and asleep, by the persistent ghost of a doomed, lost girl, perhaps a warning of a new tragedy to come. Britt meets the Ice Maiden, nearly freezes to death, and then the trail heats up as the sins of the fathers begin to strike down the innocent. A stone-cold killer out of her past is stalking the Ice Maiden again. Nothing is what it seems. And the inferno is yet to come.... Edna Buchanan, a born storyteller, combines her trademark wit, grit, and tension in The Ice Maiden, a narrative alive with Miami's blistering heat and high-octane atmosphere.

What was the nude, recently slain body of Kaithlin Jordan doing spoiling the pristine turquoise waters of Miami Beach -- especially when the dead socialite's convicted killer husband is sitting on Death Row for having murdered her...ten years ago! Reporter Britt Montero lives for this kind of story. But she may die for this one as well. Because each question raises many others -- and every hard-won answer reveals secret passions and explosive truths that could doom an overly inquisitive journalist with a tendency to leap before she looks.