Chill Factor

A Novel

By: Sandra Brown

Narrated by: Stephen Lang

Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

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. 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?

©2005 Sandra Brown (P)2005 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division.

Critic reviews

• 2005 Audie Award Nominee, Romance

"Lust, jealousy, and murder suffuse Brown's crisp thriller, set in the snowbound mountains of North Carolina....The snowy suspense will cool off Brown's fans during the dog days of summer." (Publishers Weekly)

Cartoonish hillbilly accent ruins a lead character

Sometimes an actor's interpretation of a character is merely distracting; in this particular instance, it's wrong to the point of making me regret that I didn't read Chill Factor instead of listening. Stephen Lang does a credible job with characters that are meant to be 'played' for grins, like a just-the-facts-ma'am FBI director. But with one of the key protagonists, he couldn't be farther from the mark.

I'm talking about "Dutch," the ex-husband of the heroine. This is the character that sophisticated Lily is said to have found so charming and "erudite" when they met that she fell for him immediately. But as voiced by Lang, Dutch is cursed with a specific variety of overdone Southern accent that screams "inbred backwoods moonshiner." You can't even call it a drawl; it's as if Dutch is a slow thinker who struggles to speak; the polar opposite of anyone that magazine editor Lily would ever have found attractive.

In fact, until I got to the part of the book where Lily reminisces about their early relationship, and how Dutch captivated an audience when he spoke at a fundraising event, I actually there to be a backstory that would explain the horrible mismatch between the sophisticate and the yokel. He isn't written dim-witted, but he certainly SOUNDS it here.

If Dutch were a minor character, this off-the-mark performance wouldn't matter much. But if Sandra Brown meant to create the tension of a possible three-way love triangle between Lily, Ben Tierney, and Lily's ex-husband, Lang's portrayal of the ex makes it impossible to even imagine Lily and Dutch together in anything but a shotgun wedding.

Tight writing by Brown, and a suspenseful plot. Too bad the audiobook misses the mark.

A Pleasant Listen

Sandra Brown always comes through with a suspenceful story that is easy to listen to and follow. The narrator was a little off on switching voices but all and all a good listen. You won't be disappointed if you enjoy suspence and romance.

Couldn't stop listening!

Loved the story but hated several of the characters. Felt like I knew them all!

One of the best

I think this is one of the best books I've heard froom Sandra Brown. Much better than some of her other books I've read/listened to.

Makes you want to keep listening

Stephen Lang is an excellent reader who makes the story even better.
The story is good with lots of twists and turns and guessing at "who's done it". I would recommend this book.

Not her best

This is the first book of Sandra Brown's that I really had trouble getting through. The story was good and the narrator (Audio book) was decent, but the book was way too long winded. Too much detail given to things that really didn't need that much detail. About half way through I got the abridged edition and finished it that way. I don't typically like abridged editions but in this case it was a good thing. The abridged edition made the story move in a timely manner. I think much of the issues with this book stems from trying to do too much with too many of the characters. Over all I do recommend this book if you don't mind a very long winded story or get the abridged edition and it's very enjoyable.

Good Thriller

Keeps you on your toes, then knocks you on your back. Good book

One of Brown’s best

One of Browns best
Enjoyed it right up and through the ending
Performance was great

I was not able to suspend my disbelief....

This is the second of Ms. Brown's books I have listened to and I experienced the same problem with both. The characters make such idiotic choices that I found myself annoyed for most of the book. I won't detail the bad choices because I don't want to spoil the story for other listeners who might enjoy her writing style better than I did. I will summarize by saying that a character who had nothing to lose by telling the truth lied repeatedly, and another character somehow fell in love with him in spite of his duplicity?!!!

To her credit, Ms. Brown does a good job of plotting. I finished the book simply to find out how everything would work out.

The narrator was quite good. Stephen Lang created different voices for each of the characters and was particularly good with the villain's voice.

Good story but too much graphic sex.

Too much tragic sex. The story was excellent but the descriptive sexual episodes were distracting.