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CHILL FACTOR
By Sandra Brown
This was one of those strange books that I didn’t enjoy very much until the very end. Usually it’s the other way around, isn’t it? Usually I find myself enjoying the body of a novel, but then the ending or the resolution leaves me flat. This was the reverse. The characters and the plot, the serial killer and the stereotypical small town people, the predictable nature of their lives that made them more caricatures than real – all of that was so disappointing. But I’ve got to admit, the end was pretty riveting.
Chill Factor is the story of a woman who is ending her marriage to the Chief of Police of a small mountain town. They meet at their cabin to remove their belongings and lock it up before the new owner takes possession, when a storm hits. The Chief leaves first, furious, and heads down the mountain. The wife never makes it down.
What happens in the two days following that beginning is only moderately interesting from this reader’s point of view. The town is searching for a serial killer. The book points to one person, and then another, as the culprit. It takes you down predictable paths of frustrating old maid teachers and hard-driving football coaches and jealous ex-husbands, until it delivers you at a surprising ending.
I enjoyed her last book, White Hot, more. I’m afraid only a look warm recommendation for Sandra Brown’s latest bestseller in hard back, Chill Factor. On the Book Beat for KSL Newsradio, I’m Amanda Dickson.
