Rating: 
Summary: Excellent writing
Review: I loved this author's writing style! So many books with great ideas are written without much style - or with so much that it's tedious. The story was good but the writing was excellent and I'll be looking for more of his books.
Rating:
Summary: Very, Very Scary
Review: Very scary. This book has stayed on my mind for many years; like Red Dragon. When I was interviewed by a homeowner to rent a couple rooms on her top floor, I knew I had found the right place when I saw all her books. What jumped out at me was that she had The Weatherman...we've been best friends for four years now and fight over who buys and shares the lastest thrillers!
Rating: 
Summary: Misleading but nevertheless good
Review: The back copy of this paperback novel is very misleading. In it is says that a serial killer is loose in Minnesota and is obsessed with Channel 7 reporter, Andrea Labore. He is going to do everything in his power to make her a star even if it kills her. This premise sounds good unfortunately this is not the plot of the novel.This is the story of three people: Rick Beanblossom, a scarred news producer who hides his deformed face behind a mask; Andrea Labore, a reporter from Channel 7 news who wants to become its newest anchorwoman; and Dixon Bell, the local weatherman who lives exclusively for the weather and is never wrong about his forecasts. Their lives intertwine as they work together in the newsroom and in the investigation of a serial killer that is murdering young professional women each time the seasons change. The story is complex and it encompasses several years. Each one of these characters is carefully described and we get to see their strengths as well as their weaknesses. One of them is arrested for the Minnesota killings and another one is trying to prove his innocence. There are no clear-cut answers in this book. The reader does not know if the television weatherman is the killer or just the perfect patsy. This work is a character study more than a murder mystery. It works well with this book however there are times when it can become real tedious. This book lets you use your imagination for the book's resolution. Consider yourself warned if the paperback copy written at the rear leads you to read THE WEATHERMAN. You might be disappointed at the beginning but the plot becomes interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Unexplained Mysteries
Review: I just read "the Weatherman" after having it hyped to me by a friend, and was keenly disappointed. Given the paucity of any compelling proof of Dixon Bell's guilt, the "mountain" of circumstantial evidence (that never placed him at the scene of a crime, a partial fingerprint that failed to meet even a minimum standard of proof, a diary that never mentioned any of the victims or hinted at murderous impulses) would have never convicted this man, let alone called for the death penalty. But far worse than these failings were the simply unexplained mysteries Thayer left behind. The last victim scratched her killer, leaving tissue and blood under her nails. The type O blood (the most common type) matched Bell's. But who can ever forget Detective Anglebeck's observation while interviewing Bell that he had no scratches anywhere on his hands. Apparently, Thayer did. This, unlike the circumstantial evidence against Bell, is forensic evidence that in any court would exonerate him. But it was never mentioned again. Neither was there any explanation of the origin of the "I'm going to ice you, Weatherman" messages Bell received, although there is a vague hint they came from Andy Mack, his jealous predecessor and temporary successor. And the mysterious meaning of Mack's dying words, "tell Dixon I'm sorry about those women," that at the time elicited such a strong response from Rick Beanblossom, disappeared from the story without a trace. ... My final complaint is not about "the Weatherman" itself but about writers who choose poor Minneapolis-St.Paul as the site of horrific serial murders. Between John Sanford's "Prey" series about serial killers in the cities and Thayer's "The Weatherman," I think I have counted somewhere close to one hundred victims since the mid-90s. Minnesota has changed. Charles Whitaker
Rating: 
Summary: Good first half, fair ending
Review: Halfway through this book I would have given it a higher rating; an interesting and generally original plot with intriguing characters (even if handled a little heavy-handedly). But during the final few chapters, when you'd expect things to start 'coming together' and the characters to be fully developed, the plot seems to lose cohesion and comes to a somewhat loose ending (but by then I had lost much of my interest in whatever became of the main characters). Well, I enjoyed the book - but I think it could have been a much better one.
Rating:
Summary: This book left me breathless!
Review: (...) This book BEGAN with a roller coaster ride that did not stop until the last word. I have shared this book with SIX PEOPLE--every single one LOVED IT !! This is one of those books that I WILL NOT sell, but retain in my personal collection of suspense, mystery, detective, serial killer books. (...) BUY IT! READ IT! You'll love it.
Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings...
Review: My rating is based on a combination of two factor. Steve Thayer obviously did a very thorough research about news casting, police inverstigation 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. We don't see the whole process of Rick Beanblossom and Andrea Labore's relationship changing from deep dislike to love and marriage, we only see segments of different stages of it. We witness atrial based on partial evidence, and a few pages the guy is sentenced to death, and is about to be executed after all his appeals and petitions weren't accepted. I'm sure many people noticed the striking resemblence od the botched electrocution scenes in this book and the Green Mile - did one author get any ideas from the other, or did they both stumble of the same evidence / idea somewhere? I wonder...
Rating:
Summary: The Whether Man
Review: Steve Thayer is the Whether Man. Right to the very end of The Weatherman, we don't know whether weatherman protagonist Dixon Graham Bell is guilty of serial murder or not. We think only what Thayer wants us to think. Readers are putty in the hands of this fiction-writing genius. Readers believe that--aha!--I know how this will end; only to be forced time and again to change their mind at Thayer's whim. Dixon Graham Bell is a Vietnam veteran with heroic qualities. He saved a little girl's life in Southeast Asia, and later, as a Twin Cities weatherman with a keen sense for predicting weather, he saved countless others with his early warning on a killer tornado. But suddenly he is accused of a murder spree. At the change of each season, an innocent woman is brutally killed in the land of "Minnesota Nice," and the circumstantial evidence points to Bell. Thayer takes us deep into the seedy underbelly of local network television news. There we meet Bell's coworkers. One is a reporter and fellow Vietnam vet who wears a mask to cover hideous war wounds (the killer also wears a mask). Maybe he's the murderer. There is also the beautiful and ambitious anchorwoman who rejected Bell's advances and sleeps with the married Governor instead. She might be the killer. There's also the porn-obsessed station manager, and the bitter old weatherman Bell replaced. Will the real killer please stand up? Thayer wends his way through fleshy characterizations and a twisty plot to the climax in which he masterfully makes the implausible seem plausible: capital punishment in liberal Minnesota. But the death sentence goes dreadfully wrong. Who's in the chair? Are they guilty? What disaster transpires? Do they live or die? Read it to learn whether your guesses or right or wrong. I forecast an enjoyable read. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.
Rating:
Summary: Once You Get Into It, You Can't Put It Down
Review: I have to admit I'd had this book sitting on my bookshelf for years and had lent it to other people numerous times before I finally picked it up and started reading it. And boy what I'd been missing. A great psychological thriller with details that show the amount of research done. As a Minnesotan I was, of course, totally enamored with the weather descriptions as well as other characteristics of the Twin Cities -- all also accurately portrayed. My one regret is the beauty and the beast ending -- more science fiction than reality.
Rating:
Summary: Was not quit worth my time
Review: This book was so,so but it does have some suspense in some places. If you want to read a good mystery with suspense, romance, mystery, and evrything you could possibly want that will keep you on the edge of your seat, I suggest reading Bloodline by Jill Jones.
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