"A gripping mystery"

There is a killer on the loose in the small town of Cleary. Chief Dutch Burton are frantically searching for this killer, who is in the habit of leaving a blue ribbon at the scene.

Lilly Martin magazine editor and Dutch's ex-wife has returned to Cleary to finalize the sale of their cabin. A snow storm is coming and Lilly tries to outrun it. In the process she hits Ben Tierney, whom she had met the summer before white water rafting. With her car un- drivable and the snow storm hitting. She has only one choice and that is to take the injured Tierney back to the cabin she just left. There is no telling how long they will be held up by the storm.

Driven by jealousy and his own demons, Dutch sets out to rescue Lilly.

There are some very interesting side stories going on in Cleary. All of which make for interesting exciting reading. Sandra Brown fans will not be disappointed.

Reviewed by Judith Saul
Posted September 17, 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.