A Faint Cold Fear

A Novel

By: Karin Slaughter

Narrated by: Dana Ivey

The third book in Karin Slaughter’s acclaimed Grant County Series.

"[A] page-turner.... Slaughter's plot has more twists than a Slinky factory and the characters' relationships are sharply drawn." (People, starred review)

"Scary, shocking, and perfectly suspenseful." (BookPage)

Sara Linton, medical examiner in the small town of Heartsdale, GA, 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.

©2003 Karin Slaughter (P)2003 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Romantic Times Award Winner - Best Contemporary Mystery, 2003

"Coldly captivating....with a satisfyingly chilling ending." (Publishers Weekly)
"Dana Ivey does a superb job....The story is not without graphic description. However, a complex plot and conclusion make this an interesting listen." (AudioFile)
"Slaughter knows how to ratchet up the psychological tension in a compelling plot with an unexpected twist....Chilling and addictive reading." (Booklist)

got duped by Narrator - this is NOT Kathleen Early

I wasted 6 chapters listening to this second rate narrator, Dana Ivey. Why they made two different audibles beats me but don't waste your time and go download the Kathleen Early version of the book if you're going to listen to it. Dana is completely inconsistent, not only does she bleed voices into one another so you can't even tell when there's a character change in a simple conversation but she also bleeds tone, articulation and mannerisms from one person to another and doesn't catch herself until about a quarter of the way into the dialogue so its so hard to follow and when you finally do, always noticing it is so distracting it takes away from the read. the editors should be fired for releasing this audio as a final product.. and the weird music intros at the beginning of the chapters are so low rent it's comical.. c'mon.. give me a break .. bring Kathleen Early back to show you how a professional does it.

Details, details, details

Would you try another book from Karin Slaughter and/or Dana Ivey?

yes

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

not accurate on the details

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

the narrator's voice did not vary enough by character

Was A Faint Cold Fear worth the listening time?

yes

Any additional comments?

large problem with the second suicide victim, as the author confused rifle/shotgun bullet/shell. 20 and 12 gauges are shotguns, not rifles. Shotguns discharge shells loaded with shot. Rifles discharge bullets. made the rest of the story hard to listen to as I was constantly looking/listening for other gaffes.

A lot was missing

Would you try another book from Karin Slaughter and/or Dana Ivey?

I love the characters in this series but the abridged version is so chopped up I'm afraid I missed half the story. Will def be reading it as the story is excellent.

Good Listen

Have enjoyed the series. The narrator is easy to listen to. Overall it was enjoyable.

okay

Choppy between chapters. The beginning and end were missing. Also the audio was fuzzy. The Male characters were also not as good as could be.

Good book, wrong narrator

The plot is good but the narrator takes away from the story. Listened to it for as long as I could. Will read the book.

Great Story-Voice a Litte Distracting

Would you try another book from Karin Slaughter and/or Dana Ivey?

I have listened to many other Karen Slaughter books, read by Kathleen Early, and would listen to those in a heartbeat. I was disappointed to hear a different voice on this book. Probably will not listen to another one now, as the voice does not fit the story and is therefor distracting.

How could the performance have been better?

I do not think Dana Ivey's voice is a good fit for the Karen Slaughter books. I loved the way Kathleen Early voiced the Karen Slaughter stories-the voices and accents were good, and her voice was crisp and youthful in a way that you could tell she was around the same age as the characters she was portraying. This is very important when you're trying to get into a story on audio. As soon as this book began, and I heard Dana's voice, I was immediately disappointed, and actually find myself not listening to this one as often as I would listen to the other Slaughter books being narrarated by Early. I will probably not listen to any more of Karen Slaughter books if they are voiced by Dana. The beauty of Karen Slaughter books is that that they are a guilty pleasure read, filled with drama, passion, drugs and crime. The last thing you want to envision is your grandmother reading these stories to you, which is the way I feel when Dana is narrating.

Interesting and keeps you guessing

This book is very interesting and it does keep you guessing… It always keeps you trying to figure out what is going on and just exactly what has happened in the crimes involved in this book… It ends with a surprise and the ending is rather abrupt… I must say that there are so many reviews on here talking badly about the narrator and she is so much better than so many people on here have complained about… I am absolutely non-agreeable with all of these terribly negative reviews of her as I think she did quite well… Because of all of these reviews it almost pushed me not to get this book, but I wanted to not miss any of the Grant County series with Karen slaughter and so I purchased it anyway and I was rather delighted with the narrator and I think there are far too many people out here being so nitpicky and just wanting to write things in the most negative fashion that they can and that is very sad because you need to look at everything in a picture as a whole and you need to try to see the good in everything and not just the negativity… Can you imagine how hard it is to read a book and change your voices into all of these different people and honestly I did not see that as a problem one bit in this book so I just want those of you who are reading the negative reviews to form your own opinion and look for the good parts of this book because there are plenty of those and the narrator did quite well… Thank you

Story great...narration so/so

Another great book by Karin Slaughter, but the narrator just doesn't quite fit. Dana Ivey is a beautiful woman nearing 80 and her voice reflects that. The Grant County characters are mostly adults in the prime of life, so hearing them in an aging voice is something of a distraction.

Don’t like the narrator in this book

This is the third book in this series and I’ve really enjoyed it. But I really preferred the previous narrator and I also did not think it added to the story at all that some overly dramatic music was added at times. I hope the other narrator is back in the next book.