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Reader Reviews | |
Review by Chrissi (290703) Rating (8/10) Review
by Chrissi More deaths occur, centring on the local college, where Lena is now living and working as a campus security guard. Lena is still smarting from having to leave the police force. She is still a very damaged young woman struggling to come to terms with her experiences at the hands of the madman in Blindsighted. Once again, Karin Slaughter has written a complicated, detailed thriller in which the personal experiences of the characters maintain a coherent thread throughout the narrative. This makes for compulsive reading although I was disappointed that the relationship between Sara and Jeffrey did not develop much further from where we left them at the end of Kisscut. Lena, however, takes a much greater lead and almost makes you want to scream at her for her self-destructive behaviour. We see her entering a relationship with a student, Ethan, who has a “past”, and to the end we are unsure whether she is becoming involved with another madman who will push her past a line from which she might not be able to return. In A Faint Cold Fear it is possible to see the development of Slaughter as a writer, building more into her plot development and taking her characters yet closer to their own personal demons. It makes them more real, but at the expense of some faint feeling that they are being lead by circumstances beyond their control. The abilities of Jeffrey and Sara are not supernatural, they are both normal people doing their job, and as such, you are willing them to make an intuitive leap to solve the case.
My own guess was, however, wrong on several occasions. It is not
until the very end that we find the killer and I think that that
was how Slaughter planned it. I suppose this how thrillers are
supposed to be, the killer is either obvious from the start, but
obscured with red herrings or he pops up at the end, Scooby-Doo
style. To find out which she chose, you will have to get a copy
when it is published, but be prepared for a harrowing read, this
lady pulls no punches and you will feel like you have been through
an emotional wringer by the time that you finish it. |
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