A Faint Cold Fear - Softcover

Slaughter, Karin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062021893 ISBN 13: 9780062021892

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2011

Synopsis

How close do you let a killer come?

An apparent student suicide has brought medical examiner Sara Linton to the local college campus, along with her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver. But a horribly mutilated corpse yields up few answers. And a suspicious rash of subsequent "suicides" suggests that a different kind of terror is stalking the youth of Heartsdale, Georgia--a nightmare that is coming to prey on Sara Linton's loved ones. A small town is being transformed into a killing ground. And the key to a sadistic murderer's motive and identity may be held in the unsteady hands of a campus security guard--a former police detective driven from the force by the hellish memories that will never leave her. Lena Adams survived the unthinkable and has paid a devastating price. Now the survival of future victims may depend upon her . . . when she can barely protect herself.

About this title

Review:

A Faint Cold Fear shares many of the characters and preoccupations of Karin Slaughter's earlier books about small-town coroner Sara Linton; she is still caught up in a complicated relationship with her former lover, police chief Jeffery, and disapproval of his sometimes brutal methods. Lena, once Jeffery's most trusted employee, is now a security guard at the local college and coping no better with the murder of her sister and her own abduction and rape. This becomes relevant when Jeffery has to investigate a series of murders on campus and one of the main suspects is Lena's dangerous skinhead lover.

Slaughter perhaps relies a little too heavily on a number of continuing story lines, and has constantly to fill new readers in on these characters' personal stories so far. Her principal strength is an absolute ruthlessness with technical detail--she teases out the significance or otherwise of the numerous unpleasant features of, for example, the apparent suicide that is the first of a sequence of suspicious deaths.

These are powerful and effective books because they remind us that death, including murder, is never pretty and that those who deal with it have to develop a hardness that is not always sympathetic; at her best, Slaughter has a convincing emotional grittiness. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

"Hard to imagine that such a quiet shy girl as Slaughter harbors so fiendish a heart. In Kisscut, Georgia pediatrician Sara Linton and her ex, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, are caught up in an evil web along with Detective Lena Adams. It begins with a young girl who commits suicide by forcing Jeffrey to shoot her down. Horrified, he's desperate to determine why. Sara, not just the dead Jenny's doctor but also the town's coroner, does the autopsy and makes a horrible discovery: Jenny had been rudely castrated. Lena, wrestling with her own dark demons, joins in an investigation worthy of Andrew Vachs. Man, Kisscut is a killer book, savage but exciting, a strong follow-up to Slaughter's debut in Blindsighted."--Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen Bookstore

"An impressive new landmark on the thriller map."--Val McDermid

"Slaughter spares no details...engrossing."--The Mirror (London)

"An engrossing work, with a well-drawn cast of characters and a nicely tuned plot"--Irish Times

"A fast-paced thriller for those not faint of heart."--Library Journal

"Few young writers show more promise than the thirty-year-old Slaughter. She writes...with skill, anger, sensitivity, and compassion."--Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Combines the best elements of a noir thriller and the Southern Gothic tradition complete with a brooding atmosphere."--Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

"This is one of those rare books that keeps delivering surprises right up to the very last page."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Engrossing... [with] meticulous characterizations."--People

"Simply one of the best thriller writers working today."--Gillian Flynn, bestselling author of "Gone Girl"

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0062021893
• ISBN 13: 9780062021892
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 516