A Faint Cold Fear

By: Karin Slaughter

Narrated by: Kathleen Early

Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Gillian Flynn says, "Karin Slaughter is simply one of the best thriller writers working today."

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.

©2003 Karin Slaughter (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers

Great dark thriller!

A Faint Cold Fear, released in 2003, is Book 3 in Karin Slaughter's Grant County series. The primary character in all books in the series is physician Sara Linton. Other repeating major characters in the Grant County series include Sara's ex-husband and current boyfriend Chief of Police Jeffrey Tolliver, cop Lena Adams who has great talent but tends to be self destructive, Sara's younger sister Tessa Linton who is pregnant in this book and is victim of a knife attack, Sara's mother Cathy Linton, and Sara's dad Eddie Linton. Sara is a pediatrician who also serves as medical examiner.

This book tends to be gory and the language is crude. The first murder of a local college student is set up by the killer to appear to be a suicide. Tessa Linton is then gravely injured in a knife attack and other murders follow. Sara and Jeffrey work together to find the person responsible for the crime wave.

For those not familiar with Karin Slaughter, her novels read like a combination of Lisa Gardner and Patricia Cornwell. Slaughter is one of favorite authors. All of her novels are set in Georgia.

Very highly recommended!

not the greatest in the serie

Any additional comments?

Lina is getting on my nerves. She makes me not want to continue this serie because she's so annoying! Cut her out until she can deals with her issues and then bring her back. Until then, just leave her out.

Horrible narrator

I couldn't even get into it because of the narrators tone at the end of EVERY sentence.

Irritating characters. Irritating story. Disappointing

I've been listening to the Grant County series in order. I thought Blindsighted was a good book. The story was gripping, the characters and their relationships had some depth and flaws. So despite reading some negative reviews I liked it a lot. The second book, Kisscut, was decent - not as good as the first - but the story was gritty and disturbing, it evoked emotion and sympathy for the characters and I found I couldn't stop listening. So on I went to the third book, A Faint Cold Fear. I found myself gritting my teeth and barely managing to stick with it for the whole duration of the book. Lina, especially, was just horrible in this book. Everything about her, and the scenes with her in them, was cringe-worthy. I did feel sympathy for the character, but not enough to excuse the horribleness of it all. The relationship between Jeffrey and Sarah was hard to bear too. As was the relationship between Jeffrey and Lina. I really couldn't bring myself to care about any of them. But I trudged through it to the end. I'm going to put this one in the back of my mind, forget it ever happened. And give the author and the series the benefit of the doubt. I feel invested in the series and the characters, and I want to know how it'll play out. So I'm about to start listening to book 4 with my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Enough with the masochistic female characters!

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Nope. No way, no how. I try not to recommend books that portray women as pathetic masochists who just love to be brutalized by white supremacists.

What could Karin Slaughter have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Learn more about real women who survive sexual assault and domestic violence. Don't romanticize white supremacists or brutal men in general.

Which scene was your favorite?

Any scenes that didn't romanticize and/or glorify rape, assault, domestic violence, and/or white supremacy.

Did A Faint Cold Fear inspire you to do anything?

Read fewer Karin Slaughter books. I've liked some of her other work, but this is just shameful and sickening.

Any additional comments?

I pray that no women who are in the midst of or have survived violence read or listen to this book. This book will make them believe that they are broken beyond repair, that they secretly "wanted" to be brutalized, and that they deserved the violence that was visited upon them.

Meh....

I've become a Karin Slaughter fan of late. This is the third Grant County series book I've experienced and I have to say that I was really disappointed in the fact that the main cast of characters are ALWAYS finding themselves in the victim seat. This was the weakest storyline so far. I'll continue on with her series hoping for something more.

Not Karin Slaughter's best

This book was a lot more about Lena, one of the most annoying and unappealing characters I've ever encountered, than the murders. It was as if everyone else was just clutter. Disappointed.

Disappointing and Disgusting

I was looking forward to discovering a new author and a new series to dive into. This is the first Slaughter book I have read and will definitely be the last. It was just awful. I found nearly every character either distasteful or not truly believable. In the face of horrifying and devastating loss, the characters behaved with a chilling lack of real human emotion. I started wondering whether the author couldn't convey emotions in her writing or worse, that she didn't understand normal feelings. I found the book repellent and started skipping ahead - it was that off-putting. I have read many dark, violent, gory mysteries but never have I started worrying that the author was actually enjoying the suffering of her characters and watching them with a heartless detachment. Pure unpleasantness...

Garbage. Trigger and Spoiler warning!

I’ve read some pretty graphically violent literature and been ok. But there is a line between an author shocking with horror, and fetishizing it. This book crossed that line in my opinion. The actual plot is practically a footnote to a constant barrage of revolting sexual violence and misogyny, where the STRONGEST female character meekly allows her cheating EX husband to yell at her for daring to speak to another man. Oh, and he’s the “hero” of the series.

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
In the previous novel Lena reflects on her coping mechanism during two days of rape, which involved a drug-intensified fantasy of consensual sex, in which she indulged to escape the cruel reality of her torment. Fine. Ok. But when we are getting an erotica chapter there, I start getting more than uneasy.

But I powered through and found myself here in book three. Whereupon Lena takes up with a white supremacist she believes AT LEAST watched from the sidelines as 6 of his “buddies” raped, sodomized, and beat his girlfriend to death.

This woman who has been shrieking “Don’t touch me!” to anyone who stands near her decides this fellow, after he’s smacked her around, nearly broken her wrist, and may be responsible for some hate inspired murders, is the guy she wants to have inside her.

If you enjoy weak, pathetic, self-loathing women and overcompensating, egomaniacal, self-loathing men to populate your novels, this will fit the bill. If you prefer a plot, some semblance of pacing, and to find anyone at all within the pages for whom you might feel an affinity, cheer, or possibly like, move on.

Sick of Lena

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I have read e of the Grant County Series, but about 8 of the Will Trent. But I am so sick of the character, Lena, that I don't know what to do. I don't like her or love her, I just don't care. This book, she was the main focus. As the wife of a cop, it is so unrealistic that she would ever be a cop. Too much. I am done

If you’ve listened to books by Karin Slaughter before, how does this one compare?

I like all of the Karin Slaughter books, but this one was all about Lena and she is a character that I don't care if she lives or dies. Unless the other books don't dwell on her, I am a fan.

Good Story

I have listened to these out of order, and I do prefer the Will Trent books, but this is good, with the usual frightening story line. Good Narrator. I will probably listen to all of the books eventually, even listening to them out of order does not affect the good writing.