A Faint Cold Fear

Really dislike Lena. So much so I can't stand to read about her and her miserable attitude.

It was bound to happen. I did not really enjoy this installment of the Grant County series for a few reasons. The location and some of the disparaging side plots. I'll get into that later, but this book focuses on a murderer who starts picking off students and faculty using questionable methods and setups. Are they all connected? Time will tell.

What makes this one unique is that Sara's sister is also a victim. While Sara is assisting the police in finding the killer, she is also watching her sister cling to life and trying to mend relationships with her ex-husband at the same time. It's panic-inducing, and it's hard not to feel sorrow for the family as the grisly story unfolds.

As I stated before, it is the college location that feels ordinary. We are introduced to stereotypical college kids, questionable faculty, parties, and those bending the law for a good time. It is fairly easy to figure out who to add to a list of possible suspects and who you can tick off and leave to indulge in their vices.

Do not get me wrong; this one is a dark book, but most of the content is much too obvious. There is no pizazz to the mystery, no exciting hook. The story's connective tissue (quite literally) is just dull. It definitely has that third-book or movie curse. i.e., Robocop 3, Superman 3, Terminator 3, Matrix 3, Godfather 3, etc., you get the point. I could have used more emphasis on Jeffery and Sara's relationship and less on Lena's constant downfall and noncommittal attitude to help with the murder investigation. I get why she is unwilling to help; believe me, it's horrible what she goes through, but it gets a bit much towards the end. I guess what I am getting at is that the story is just a bit thin. It has the usual trappings of the previous novels, but this one does not do too much more to lift the story to a new level.

The shocking ending will definitely rub most people the wrong way, and I don't even truly know where I stand with the twist until I check out the next installment.

──∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗── 3 ★'s ──∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗──

The book starts off with a bang when Tess, Sara Linton's sister, is attacked in the woods with dire consequences. It continues with Jeffery and Sara going from crime scene to crime scene trying desperately to make sense of why Tess was attacked and how the crimes are linked. Lena, the dismissed detective, continues a horrible slide downhill after the cruelties of the last book.I enjoyed this book a lot. It's the best of the series so far. I do wish the author would stop with the silliness of Jeffery and Sara's relationship and deepen it in some other way. The ending of Book #2 left Lena in such a state and I was rooting for her to dig down and recover in this book. She certainly took a path that I wasn't expecting and was disappointed with. But I am still rooting for her and cannot wait to read the next book in this series. It will also be interesting to see how Sara's family is going to recover after Tess was injured. I loved the twist ending. Well, not the person, but that there was that type of ending. There was a resolution to the main case but not for a lot of the characters involved. On to reading the next in the series: [b:Indelible 182012 Indelible (Grant County, #4) Karin Slaughter https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1299703450l/182012.SY75.jpg 2392798]

Whoa Lena. Just...whoa.

I've never really liked Lena as a character. From the first book she was curt, rude, unforgiving and unhappy. Then she was attacked and I felt horrible for her, but I still didn't like her. In the second book she was spiraling down and again, I felt sorry for her, but I didn't like her. Now, in the third Grant County book I just didn't understand her.

There's so much flip flopping in this books, things left unconnected and left hanging that at the end I would have felt bummed, but then with the last scene of Lena I was kind of floored. At first I felt it came out of left field, but maybe not.

Everyone here still feels like a surface character. We've not gone any deeper and so I think that's why I have a harder time connecting with anyone. The murder mystery part is enough to keep me interested, but it was kind of all over the place and really, this was Lena's book.

For me this was a means to the end. I want to continue reading the series so that means I must read each book along the way. I could have taken this one or left it, but then ending....well, whoa.

This book was an intense thriller in the Sara Linton/Grant County series, focusing mostly on Lena Adams and her struggle to identify the killer while dealing with her own personal issues. I liked the character interactions and the plot moved along well.