A Faint Cold Fear - Karin Slaughter - 4 stars

This book #3 of the Grant County series. Although this series is not as good as the Will Trent Series I am still enjoying it and plan on continuing with this story.
Synopsis
An apparent student suicide has brought medical examiner Sara Linton to the local college campus, along with her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver. But a horribly mutilated corpse yields up few answers. And a suspicious rash of subsequent "suicides" suggests that a different kind of terror is stalking the youth of Heartsdale, Georgia -- a nightmare that is coming to prey on Sara Linton's loved ones.

A small town is being transformed into a killing ground. And the key to a sadistic murderer's motive and identity may be held in the unsteady hands of a campus security guard -- a former police detective driven from the force by the hellish memories that will never leave her. Lena Adams survived the unthinkable and has paid a devastating price. Now the survival of future victims may depend upon her ... when she can barely protect herself.

I find the plots to most of these books are much more brutal than those of the Will Trent Series. So they may not be for the faint of heart. As the story unfolds we are introduced to A LOT of different characters, both the good and the bad, and those you think are bad might be good and vice versa. I thought there was a lot going on in this one, but it was still relatively easy to follow, and I still found the storytelling very fluid, but that is because I find Karin Slaughter an excellent writer. I felt like this one really makes readers think and try to decide who the bad guys are and it really is hard to figure it out. Then the ending of this book blew my mind and just opened me up to a ton more questions that I do hope eventually get answered somewhere in the rest of this series.

The characters, while pretty well developed at this point really kind of disappointed me. I ended up really hating Jeffrey because I found him to be a real ass, making me wonder what Sara still sees in him, and then doubting Lena because she is really showing a side of her that I did not expect to see. Sara, I still pretty much like, she is mostly the same as she is in the Will Trent series. Then there are characters in this book that I was just not sure about, showing that they were one way and end up being something completely different. So there is a lot to sort through and some pretty colorful characters as far as that all goes.

I definitely can recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Karin Slaughter. She is such a gifted writer. I look forward to continuing with this series.