"suspense laden thriller"

The quiet tranquil mountain town of Cleary, North Carolina is no longer serene as five women have disappeared without a trace. Authorities and loved ones fear the worst because a blue ribbon was left in the vicinity where each woman was last seen.

Lily Martin doesn't think the disappearances will affect her because she is leaving town after selling the cabin that belonged to her and her ex-husband, chief of police Dutch Burton. As she drives down the mountain in a bad storm, she hits Ben Tierney who suddenly materializes in front of her car. They are forced to return to the cabin since the car is inoperable. The attraction that sprung up between them a year ago on a kayak trip flares up again but Lilly fears that Tierney is the serial killer responsible for the deaths of the five women. When Dutch learns from the FBI that they are looking at Tierney as a suspect, he goes berserk. He uses the power of his office to get up the mountain to kill Tierney; ironically the FBI tries to stop him from executing vigilante justice.

Sandra Brown can always be counted on for giving readers a thrilling, exciting and entertaining reading experience. Unlike law enforcement, readers are privy to other residents who might be considered suspects because they have secrets that they want to keep hidden and deflecting attention to Tierney is one way of doing it. The townsfolk would rather believe an outsider is the perpetrator and not one of their own. CHILL FACTOR is a suspense laden work that is read in one sitting.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 15, 2005

Summary

Suspense abounds in this gripping new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown, in which a successful magazine editor is trapped in her remote cabin with a man believed to be a serial killer.

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?

The compelling characters, sexual tension, and stunning plot twists in Sandra Brown's Chill Factor combine to create a page-turner that will keep readers guessing until the very end.