Sara Linton, medical examiner in the small town of Heartsdale, Georgia, is called out to an apparent suicide on the local college campus. The mutilated body provides little in the way of clues — and the college authorities are eager 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 from the force, Lena seems to be barely capable of protecting herself, let alone saving the next victim.
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A Faint Cold Fear is the third book in the Grant County series, following Blindsighted and Kisscut. I found this book to be much more personal than the previous two; it engaged my emotions much more quickly and easily.
This novel begins seven months following the conclusion of Kisscut and carries forward many of the interpersonal development established in the first two novels. It was difficult to experience Lena’s continued downward spiral as she tried to process her trauma from Blindsighted.
The previous two audiobooks were narrated by the fabulous Kathleen Early. I am very fond of listening to her southern drawl as the series is set in Georgia, and I swear I may end up with a Georgian accent if I keep listening to these audiobooks in such close succession. There are a few different recordings for this novel, and the one I borrowed from the library was read by Deborah Hazlett. She was fine but I prefer Early’s narrations.
Weirdly, the audio file I borrowed electronically from the library announces the end and beginning of each “cd”, even though it isn’t on cds. Clearly the publisher didn’t edit that out when e-audiobooks came into existence which is an annoying but minor detail of the audiobook.
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