Joanne Kilbourn, or Jo, in A Colder Kind of Death is a university professor from Saskatchewan with four children,(one adopted) two dogs, a cat and several murder mysteries. Her husband, Ian Kilbourn, was killed six years earlier, and recently, her husbands killer, Kevin Tarpley, has been shot and sent her a letter before he died. Also, she has been framed for the murder of Kevin Tarpley’s wife, Maureen. Jo’s behaviour in these situations show us Jo’s personality traits, including her self control, her caring for her family, and her well developed common sense. These traits allow her to get through these situations without much more gained then a boyfriend and a cat. Her self control paid a keen advantage over most people in similar situations.
Her self control allowed her to take moments, such as when she was threatened by Maureen, “‘You’ll be sorry you said that, Joanne,’” (pg.49) that would cause normal people to panic, to think straight and stay relatively calm. For example, near the end of the book, Gary shows up at the cabin Jo and Tess are staying at, brandishing a rifle, “at first, when I opened my eyes and saw Gary Stephens standing in front of me, I thought I was dreaming. … then I saw the rifle in his hands, and I knew it was real.” The average person would probably start to panic or attempt to calm Gary down, but Jo does not. Jo controls herself and takes advantage of the moment to interrogate Gary on what he’s done and how he feels about it. Jo’s interrogation causes Gary to forget what he probably came to the cabin to do, which was to either kill Tess and Jo, or kill himself (pg200). Instead she caused him to forget what he was doing long enough for her to get some answers. Once she had her answers, she told Gary what she thought of what he had done, reminding him of what he had to do, or at least what he believed he had to do. The average Canadian probably could not have said the things she said to him, for example, that he was...