Throwback Thursday: A Cold Dark Place by Gregg Olsen

Author: Gregg Olson
First published in 2008 by Pinnacle

The Seeds Of Evil...

In a secluded farm house in the Pacific Northwest, a family has been slaughtered--and a teenage son has disappeared. Single mother and cop, Emily Kenyon spearheads a dark hunt for a killer. But Emily's teenage daughter Jenna is one step ahead of her...

Are Planted In...

Jenna knows the boy suspected of murdering his family and wants to help him--perhaps too much. Then within days of the first murder, another family is butchered, this time in Iowa. And on the heels of this brutal slaying, another follows in Salt Lake City. Eerie similarities link the crime scenes. But an even darker connection threatens to claim even more victims... 

A Cold Dark Place

As Emily fits the puzzle pieces together, she realizes the danger surrounding her daughter is worse than she'd imagined. Now in a desperate race to save Jenna, Emily must match wits with the most cunning, diabolical killer she's faced yet in her career--a killer who's just placed her and her daughter at the top of his list...

I almost gave up on this book.  I thought the first half was incredibly dull.  The plot seemed to be kind of random.  The story goes between now, before the tornado, and 21 years before.  I'm not sure I liked that format for this book. But then the story started to come together and I found myself wanting to stick with it.  I was pretty sure I had it worked out in my head as to what was going on, but then the author threw in a nice twist that I wasn't expecting.  

In all the mystery was pretty good. Once the pieces start coming together, things make more sense.  I liked the characters for the most part, but I had a hard time with a few things. Jenna's dead was an idiot.  Your daughter shows up at your house after being missing for days and you don't turn her and her companion in to the police to sort things out?  Instead you let her go to the library.  I found that plot point hard to swallow.  I was also not a fan of all of the pop culture references.  It really dated the book.  

I haven't read anything else by this author.  I see that he used to write true crime novels.  I definitely got that feel when I read this book.  I would recommend it, if you can stick with it through the first half, the ending is worth it.

Victim Six

by Gregg Olsen


I wanted to like this book, I really did. I have little scraps of paper with book titles and authors scattered all over the place as reminders to look for those books when I’m out and about. I’ve had that one written down for quite a few months and I finally got a copy of it from the library. There was nothing wrong with the book. Strong characters, decent writing, a good plot, etc. For some reason though, I just couldn’t get into the book. I think I got to Victim 2 and I just didn’t really care what happened to her or the next 4 victims. Back to the library it went. I would give Mr. Olsen another shot. Most of his books are true crime which isn’t my thing, but he’s got at least one other fiction book out.