A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter

To be honest, I have never read any of Karin’s Slaughter’s novels and I have to say this was my first. And so therefore, I anticipated reading this novel normally I would know the work of certain writers/authors even though I did not read any of their previous work but I am aware of her other novels that I really want to read such as Genesis, Kisscut, Blindsighted and Triptych, amongst others. However, the synopsis on the back-cover of this novel got me hooked and being a sucker for crime/thriller fiction made me eager to read this novel.

It didn’t take me long to get into the novel. The storyline was great and some crime scenes shocking as to how the scenes got described in the novel. The novel was fast paced and full of twists and I ended up not wanting to put the book down until I finish it that instant.

It was in no way predictable even some shady characters couldn’t really be pinned down for the murders in my opinion as it could have been anyone. In fact, on my mental suspect list I almost had every character down as a suspect except for “Sara” and “Jeffrey”. The overall storyline was quite gripping. Slaughter left me guessing throughout most of the storyline. At a later point in the story I started narrowing my suspect list down and things started to fall into place but I was still lacking evidence. So it is only at the very end that I found out who the killer was.

The characters were well crafted throughout the storyline but I got annoyed at one particular character, Lena, for her self-destructive behavior, a person would think that she could only become a stronger person for the horrible things she went through…

I ended up losing a couple of hours sleep to finish the book.

I really enjoyed reading this novel and I definitely recommend others to read it.

Publishers Write-Up:

Sara Linton, medical examiner in the small town of Heartsdale, is called out to an apparent suicide on the local camps. The mutilated body provides little in way of clues – and the college authorities are keen to avoid a scandal – but for Sara and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, things don’t add up.

Two more suspicious suicides follow and a young woman is brutally attacked. For Sara, the violence strikes far too close to home. And as Jeffrey pursues the sadistic killer, he discovers that ex-police detective Lena Adams, now a security guard on campus, may be in possession of crucial information. But, bruised and angered by her expulsion form the force, Lena seems barely capable of protecting herself, let alone saving the next victim…

What the media had to say about Karin Slaughter:

“Don’t read this alone. Don’t read this after dark. But do read it” – Mirror

“Crime fiction at its finest” – Michael Connely

“Unsparing, exciting genuinely alarming…a formidable debut” – Literary Review

“Grips like a vice from the first page… A lot of writers are going to read this and weep” – Val McDermid