The plot, at first, might seem to be just another “missing person – serial killer” cookie cutter, but one soon finds that there is much more to this plot than is shown in the beginning chapters. Ms. Brown presents us with several finely crafted characters, each with a carefully analyzed psychology, and all but one bound together by virtue of their tightly knit home town in North Carolina. The “but one” is an off and on visitor to the town, an expert in weather conditions and climate, etc., hence the title. For this reader, the main interest was not the crime but the relationships between these men and women who people the insular little town, and how they affect each other. One almost immediately finds at least three people who qualify for the role of villain, with more qualifying as the story develops. This story is about people; young people and middle-aged, successful and unsuccessful, good and bad, male and female. And the one thing that ties them all together is a series of six unexplained disappearances.

The author has painted a very clear picture of the lives of her fictional people, and of the place in which they reside. One can easily begin to feel the cold, fear the icy mountainous roads of the North Carolina hill country, and sense the isolation of the families who live beyond the main streets. Certainly one's environment affects one's character and outlook, and Ms. Brown leaves us with no doubt about the causes and effects of the circumstances of her plot.

If there is any negative about this book, I would consider it to be the excessively graphic descriptions of intimacy between some of the characters. Sure, she wants her characters to “live”, that is part of life, but enough is enough, in this reader's opinion. One wonders if Ms. Brown feels that she has a responsibility as a female writer of what used to be primarily male-written mysteries to throw in these over-described scenes just to be accepted by her male readers. Maybe not. In any case, her intimacy scenes sometimes teeter on the edge of pornography, and in some instances they are almost laughably inappropriate and unlikely to have occurred outside the covers of a book.

That aside, Chill Factor is a very good read.
Review by Litera Scripta