Chill Factor Review

Title:  Chill Factor
Author:  Sandra Brown
Publisher:  Pocket Books
Release Date:  Aug. 1, 2006
Buy Link:  Amazon

My Rating:  4 Chilling ♥'s

Synopsis:

Cleary, North Carolina, is a sleepy mountain town—the kind of place where criminal activity is usually limited to parking violations. Not so, lately. Four women have disappeared from Cleary over the past two years. And there’s always a blue ribbon left near the spot where each of the women was last seen. There are no bodies, no other clues, and no suspicion as to who their abductor might be. And now, another woman has disappeared without a trace.

It is to this backdrop that Lilly Martin returns to close the sale of her mountain cabin, marking the end of her turbulent eight-year marriage to Dutch Burton, Cleary’s chief of police. Dutch’s reluctance to let her go isn’t Lilly’s only obstacle. As she’s trying to outrun a snowstorm, her car skids on the icy road and strikes a man who emerges from the woods on foot. She recognizes the injured man as Ben Tierney, whom she’d met the previous summer. They’re forced to wait out the storm in the cabin, but as the hours of their confinement mount, Lilly begins to wonder if the greatest danger to her safety isn’t the blizzard outside, but the mysterious man right beside her.

Is Ben Tierney the feared abductor? Or is he who he claims to be...her rescuer from harm and from the tragedy that haunts her? 

Review:

Like most Sandra Brown books, Chill Factor is high on suspense and rich in details with a setting that plays intricately into the story.  The list of possible “who-done-it” candidates is laden with red herrings and the stakes are high.  Like the road that snakes up the mountainside where Lilly Martin finds herself stranded in a cabin during a blizzard, the plot is twisted with s-turns and roadblocks.  If only she had headed down right behind her ex-husband, she would have been off the mountain before the storm hit . . . and she wouldn’t be trapped alone in a cabin with a man that she’s extremely attracted to – one that may or may not be a serial killer. 

Ben Tierney is a man of mystery.  Very little is known about him other than the fact that he’s an extreme sports writer and attracts women like flies to honey.  Lilly first met him on a kayaking trip the previous summer.  They both felt the jolt of chemistry that passed between them, but Lilly was still married to the very jealous police chief of the small, mountain town at the time.  They parted ways, each wanting but not taking more.  And now, they’ve met again – under much different circumstances.  Five local women are missing, presumed dead.  The town’s people are on edge, tempers are volatile.  The only “stranger” in town is Ben – does that make him the most likely suspect?  Should Lilly trust her heart or follow the evidence?

Chill Factor is intense with on-the-edge-of-your seat suspense filling the pages from cover to cover.  The character list is stacked with possible suspects -  damaged, fallible characters with motive, opportunity, and major issues of their own. The rugged, frozen winter setting plays heavily into the storyline as roads are impassable with no one getting up or down the mountain.  Brown is a master at throwing readers off the scent of the real culprit, but I managed to figure this one out early.  But with heart-racing, adrenalin-inducing scenes playing out through the block buster ending, it didn’t lessen my enjoyment.  My only minor issue was the lack of open communication between the hero/heroine with a couple of over-the-top scenes, but still another chilling story by this author.  Chill Factor is a Must Read!

My Rating:  4 Chilling ♥'s . . . And that's the truth!

Cross My Heart . . . xxx

Sandra