A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter


Not very good

Originally published in 2003.

First the positives:

The over-arching storyline of A Faint Cold Fear is really a pretty good concept of a story. I did want to know who did it so I read until the very end.

Now, the negatives:

Too many characters that are introduced just once and then continually referred to from that moment on by their first name. There are nearly 20 characters that I am supposed to remember with no reminder of what they do in the plot. Just a name and I have to go back in to the book and look up who Kevin or Richard was.

Plot items are brought in (the arrow drawn in the dirt outside the dorm window, for example) that are a big deal for about 3 pages and then are totally dropped.

Lena. Her behavior is insane. She's terrified to be touched (being the victim of a horrific rape), afraid to be out of control and yet she goes to a rave party full of drugs, gets drunk and loses control with a dangerous man who has already hurt her.

The relationship between Lena and Chief Jeffrey Tolliver is so contrived, so "fakey" that it just failed to click at any level for me. Every scene between them seemed forced.

A shotgun IS NOT a rifle. They are both long guns, but they are different. This is not specialized knowledge. Ask anyone who knows a thing about guns and they'll explain the difference. It's not hard. I can't believe no one caught that at the publishing house, either.

I also cannot believe that any college campus would let any student, even a student on a skeet-shooting team, keep their gun in their room on campus. Campuses have been gun-sensitive places for years and years. I know of a student who had to live off campus because he refused to leave his skeet guns in a designated locker at a university in Indiana in the 1980s.

 I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

 This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Faint Cold Fear (Grant County Mysteries)

Reviewed on July 14, 2008.

Comments

  1. AmythystJuly 20, 2011 at 12:17 AM

    Where do you get your books for review?

    ReplyDelete
  2. DWDJuly 20, 2011 at 10:11 AM

    Bookish -

    Where do I get my books for review?

    The number one place this summer has been from my massive pile of "to be read" books - stuff I received as gifts or that I have bought over the years from Amazon or library sales or even Goodwill. At one point in time I worked for a very nice used book store that went out of business. I was allowed to take as many books as I wanted before they packed what was left and sent it to a truck stop that bought out the leftover stock. That's probably where this book came from.

    The library is my second place to get stuff - and the primary reason why my "to be read" pile is so large. We have a fantastic library system here and they have so many good books...

    Third - The Amazon Vine program and Thomas Nelson publishers "booksneeze" send out books to reviewers for review. I do that but I am picky about what I request - for me, reading is entertainment. I hate to read and have it seem like work.

    -DWD

    ReplyDelete

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