This was an EXCELLENT thriller. ( )

Goodreads Synopsis: A serial killer is on the loose in Minnesota, snapping young women's necks with each change of the seasons. Within twenty four hours of the first murder, TV weatherman Dixon Bell, a hulking eccentric, warns his viewers that a tornado is about to strike. The National Weather Service hasn't called it, but Dixon Bell does because he sees it coming in his mind. Among all the complex and original characters in this astonishing novel, the shifting weather and landscape of Minnesota stand out - demonic, majestic, bizarre, magical. Dixon Bell is not the only eccentric on Channel 7's Sky High News. His alter ego is an investigative news producer named Rick Beanblossom, a Vietnam vet and Pulitzer Prize winner, who hides his napalmed face, and his feelings, behind a mask. Guided along the way by an unnamed police source. Rick is on the track of the serial killer. Then he is assigned an unlikely partner, Andrea Labore, a lovely and ambitious ex-cop turned TV reporter. The newsman and the weatherman start out as bitter rivals for this gifted woman. But an ambivalent friendship grows between them when Dixon Bell becomes a suspect in the weather-related killings and Rick Beanblossom sets out to prove him innocent.

My Thoughts: This was my first ever Audiobook and I do think it took away something for me. The story is an interesting one, but I think I need to go back and read it to truly be engrossed in it. That said, I will try other audiobooks, but maybe nothing this intense for now until I get used to it. Overall, I think it was a good story, it set a great tone and it was fun to hear them talk about places I'm familiar with being from Northeast Wisconsin. I also think had I been reading it, I would have found it to be very intense and more than a little creepy, the weather aspect was very interesting. ( )

From Amazon:

It's the dead of winter, and a serial killer has frozen a city in fear...
Television newscaster Andrea Labore sees it as a career-making story...
He's called The Weatherman. And he's going to make Andrea a star...
Even if it kills her.

My Thoughts:

Steve Thayer obviously did a very thorough research about news casting, police investigation and meteorology before writing this book, and it shows.
On the other hand, the story line isn't very good. I'm not sure whether this is a murder investigation story involving a news station or a story about the dynamics of a newsroom with a background story of a serial killer, but the 2 very prominent story lines doesn't give a feeling of a 'focused' story. The time gaps between the different parts of the book also makes it hard to read. By the end of the story I was still unsure who committed the crime. The author tantalizingly hinted that a serial killer in another state entirely had committed the crimes Dixon Bell was convicted of. There were sub-stories of the other characters that cluttered the novel...not to mention the font in the copy I had was about 8pt. So...intriguing story but for the above mentioned points 3 stars instead of 5. ( )

A gripping regional mystery filled with a well-paced story and haunting suspense. Thayer's story of murder and discovery never fails to speed up the heart rate even though the characters, excluding the serial killer, feel two-dimensional. ( )

A brilliant meteorologist, a faceless burn victim, and a serial killer in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. This is a truly gripping book. A real page-turner. But the ending is a bit of a disappointment. This is not due to a lack of storytelling skill, however - things just didn't end the way I wanted them to. I wanted the characters' lives to go in different directions. So it's still a good book. ( )