'The Silent Wife' Will Trent #10 by Karin Slaughter

 

From the BLURB: 

He watches.

A woman runs alone in the woods. She convinces herself she has no reason to be afraid, but she's wrong. A predator is stalking the women of Grant County. He lingers in the shadows, until the time is just right to snatch his victim.

He waits.

A decade later, the case has been closed. The killer is behind bars. But then another young woman is brutally attacked and left for dead, and the MO is identical.

He takes.

Although the original trail has gone cold - memories have faded, witnesses have disappeared - agent Will Trent and forensic pathologist Sara Linton must re-open the cold case. But the clock is ticking, and the killer is determined to find his perfect silent wife ...

 

‘The Silent Wife’ is the 10th book in Karin Slaughter’s ‘Will Trent’ crime series, and the 20th published book in her career that started in 2009 with the ‘Grant County’ series and the characters of Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver and his ex-wife coroner, Sara Linton.

Now – spoiler! – Jeffrey was killed in the sixth book of ‘Grant County’ (called ‘Beyond Reach’ and alternate title ‘Skin Privilege’) then Sara transitioned to the established Will Trent series, where over the course of the last eight or so books, she has started a relationship with Will.

This is all important to note because for the first time since his passing, Jeffrey is back. Kind of. ‘The Silent Wife’ sees one of Jeffrey’s old cases and convictions unearthed when a prisoner who swears black and blue that he’s innocent, points Will Trent and his partner Faith Adams (both of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation) to a potential killing spree for which he was imprisoned, but if his hunches prove true then it means a serial rapist and killer has been on the streets for eight years … the book flashes back to the case unfolding as it did then eight years ago when Jeffrey was chief of police at Grant County, shady cop Lena Adams was just starting out and screwing up, and Jeffrey and Sara’s divorce was only a year old and still raw over his uncovered unfaithfulness. The book switches between Sara and Will in real-time backtracking over the case to see if there are fresh clues and new murders, and Jeffrey in the past working in real-time of the past to track down someone who is murdering female students from the local college.

Now let me just say – I have never been so floored by the loss of a fictional character as I was by Jeffrey Tolliver. I – and all ‘Grant County’ fans – were completely stumped and horrified by that twist we never saw coming, and I think in many ways we’ve all been (much like Sara) grappling with it ever since. After reading ‘The Silent Wife’ I even went back to ‘Beyond Reach’ and read that last chapter again and … tears. Floods of tears. Just like the first time it sucker-punched me.

So when I flipped the page in ‘The Silent Wife’ to find a chapter in Jeffrey’s head as he was then – I gasped. I cried. It was like a pressure-valve lifting and all the old hurts over his loss came flooding back because it was also so damn good to have him back. And this is where Slaughter I think knows her audience so dang well, because I’m sure I’m not alone. I am sure that (again – keeping pace with Sara’s emotional trajectory) majority of us were probably at the point of finally being fully invested in the ‘Will Trent’ series and his and Sara’s relationship … to then yank us back to the past heightens everything. Brilliantly. Viscerally.

This is of course why Slaughter did it. ‘The Silent Wife’ even unfolds with Sara and Will at a precipice point in their relationship (he’s proposed but … abysmally. They both agree to circle back to talking about it but never do and suddenly six-weeks have passed and they can both feel the clock ticking as to what to do about their relationship).

Meanwhile; Sara and Jeffrey in the past are at a point in their relationship that readers have only gleaned second-hand from both parties. The time before first book ‘Blindsighted’ when they’re in the thick of their animosity over Jeffrey’s cheating and subsequent recent divorce (even if it’s blatantly obvious that there’s still love there, it’s only amplifying the hurt right now).

At both points in time Sara is on the edge with the two men in her life – down one path we know that she and Jeffrey reconcile and give it another go that only ends with his murder. But in ‘The Silent Wife’ the events of ‘Blindsighted’ haven’t happened, and Sara has yet to confide in Jeffrey all the truths of her past, including her own rape when she was in college.

Down the other side we have Will and Sara – crazy about each other, but still plagued by their respective pasts. And the reopened case presents an opened wound to be exposed; Will is literally coming face-to-face with the ghost of the late, great Jeffrey Tolliver. The love of Sara’s life, who Will wonders if he’ll always feel second-best to as he grapples with the reality that had he not died – Sara would still be married to him. And Sara is trying to squeeze her love and missing Jeffrey around the way her heart has expanded to need Will, to love him dearly.

It is SUCH a good place for this story to spin around. Absolutely, delicious and juicy and exposing the very reason I kept coming back to this series – the relationships.

In fact, at the back of the book in a spoiler-filled Author’s Note, Slaughter outright admits; “I bet you guys didn’t notice that I’ve been secretly writing love stories. Really gritty, violent, love stories, but still.” I noticed. Lots of us did. I started reading Slaughter’s ‘Grant County’ series when I was 22(!!!) and actually – fun fact! – ‘Blindsighted’ was the very first book I reviewed on my blog! It was the first proper-proper crime series I delved into and it was the tension-filled relationship of Jeffrey and Sara that hooked me (aside from a great whodunnit procedural) I wouldn’t have kept coming back to this series if I didn’t love the characters and want to see the best for them. And ‘The Silent Wife’ is really sticking them all under a microscope in the most amazing, curious way.

There’s so many layers in this book.

It’s also fascinating to see Slaughter admit that Tolliver maybe wasn’t the best police officer like everyone (and probably fans) remember. That’s illuminated in ‘The Silent Wife’ and a case that is literally spun around Jeffrey missing clues and letting a killer get away. It’s also highlighting Lena Adams genesis as a dirty cop … I’ve never liked Lena (I mean; who does?) but I’ve also been bitingly aware of the fact that when we met her in ‘Blindsighted’ it was on her worst day and one that irrevocably changed her – the murder of her sister. What’s fascinating in ‘The Silent Wife’ is – we see the actual genesis of Lena’s foolhardy broken morality just beginning. In stupid, human mistakes sure – but also in Jeffrey seeming to make the connection that she could be what Will later dubs his “grey rabbit”, a cop who gets her hands dirty so others can keep theirs clean, she’s will to go down the rabbit hole of grey-areas.

And here I’ll just say – Lena is also in the present and being interviewed by Will and Faith, and much like our spidey-senses were tingling in anticipation of Will’s ex-wife Angie coming back, Lena’s presence in ‘The Silent Wife’ really works to drop breadcrumbs that Slaughter is not done where she’s concerned. She seemingly got her happily-ever-after with Jeffrey’s son Jared and a baby on the way (I dread her rubbing that in Sara’s face like I know she will) and Faith Adams has the best summary of this seemingly perfect life for one of the most undeserving individuals, when she says;

“Fucking Lena.” Faith flapped down the visor to look in the mirror. “How did that bitch get J.Lo’s life with Lizzie Borden’s personality?”

How indeed.

But I am of the belief that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was right; "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I think we haven’t seen the back of Lena and her toxicity, but I also believe that she will be exposed for who she really is. Eventually.

At both points in time, we see Sara at a fractious point in both her relationship with Jeffrey and Will. What’s interesting is how differently those trajectories play out, but also what’s illuminated as we observe the men satelliting around the women they love. For Jeffrey, we see him rewriting history and changing the narrative … the same way Lena Adams does in her field-notes. Will has really grown as a character, and though it’s all internalised – we see him reasoning out and talking through his emotions and why he’s experiencing them. That’s Sara’s influence crowding out his head and heart.

What was almost uncomfortable for me to realise while reading ‘The Silent Wife’ was … poking at the idea that maybe Will is the better suitor overall. Much as Jeffrey was – well, Jeffrey. Brilliant and charismatic, bull-headed and egotistical – someone who hurt Sara deeply and repeatedly, but also loved her like no other … Slaughter’s Author’s Note also highlights this when she says she knew Will was going to have to earn Sara’s love. Both between them, and for fans. And reading ‘The Silent Wife’ and the healthier way that he and Sara confront the pitfalls of their relationship head on (eventually) – it’s abundantly clear that he’s done that. Tenfold.

I was uhmming and ahhing whether or not to give this book 4.5 stars or not. The only criticism I have is the whodunnit was very obvious and I had it figured out within a few chapters. But looking back at all the juicy tension and character development and retrospectives … and knowing that this book is Slaughter at her absolute *best* and highlighting the complexities that make her series so wonderful, I am convinced that she always meant for there to be an element of the obvious for the whodunnit. Because a lot of this book is observing the things that are right in front of our faces, but we’re not yet ready to confront and examine or admit to ourselves.

So it’s five-stars from me, and a hearty wish that I already had details of what’s next from my favourite of all crime-writers.

 

5/5

'The Last Widow' Will Trent #9 by Karin Slaughter

From the BLURB:

The routine of a family shopping trip is shattered when Michelle Spivey is snatched as she leaves the mall with her young daughter. The police search for her, her partner pleads for her release, but it's as if she disappeared into thin air.

A month later, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, medical examiner Sara Linton is at lunch with her boyfriend Will Trent, an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. But the serenity of the summer's day is broken by the wail of sirens.

Sara and Will are trained to run towards an emergency, not away from it. But on this one terrible day that instinct betrays them. Within hours the situation has spiralled out of control. And the fallout will lead them into the Appalachian mountains, to the terrible truth about really happened to Michelle, and to a remote compound where a radical group has murder in mind ...

‘The Last Widow’ is the ninth book in Karin Slaughter’s ongoing crime-thriller series, ‘Will Trent’.

It has been three years since we got a new ‘Will Trent’ instalment – and truth be told, last book ‘The Kept Woman’ didn’t quite tide me over satisfactorily. It read like a filler-book in the series, with little progress or advancement for the characters and their relationships – which is the whole reason I keep coming back to Slaughter, for the relationship of Will Trent and ‘Grant County’ expat, Sara Linton.

Well, I am happy to report that ‘The Last Widow’ left me a lot more satisfied – but also built my hunger and renewed my interest in this series overall, to the point where I know that I’m going to be painfully desperate for the tenth book  – which will probably be another three years coming!

Slaughter is very clever in how she sets up the parameters of this story – which hinges on an upcoming catastrophic event that none of our players know precisely what it is, only that it’s coming. There’s a countdown that the timeline hinges on, and from the get-go Slaughter uses it to set up the personal fractions and factions within the series world too.

We see a small window of time from both Sara and Will’s perspectives – the calm before the story – as they respectively deal with nuances in their relationship within an ordinary day. What’s brilliant is that we get the internals from both of them and see the same scene play out from both their perspectives – to realise that Will and Sara are currently out-of-step in their relationship, without even realising it. This is characterisation minutiae, and it’s Slaughter at her absolute best – because these small details will echo throughout the book, until they become loud as church-bells by the end.

From there, the book picks up a frenetic pace and a chilling whodunit – the crux of which I don’t want to give too much away, because it’s a great premise and plot for the entire book. You’d think a storyline like this when Will and Sara are on rocky ground, would further fracture them for readers but it actually does the opposite – solidifying their relationship, and what’s to come in the series.

I’ll only say that ‘The Last Widow’ is a book of the times. Slaughter has done her research – as always – but in doing so she’s looked into the dark-heart of the current American political and social climate, and it’s nor pretty. This book deals with Neo-Nazi’s, domestic terrorism and homebred militia. It’s honestly one of the most frightening scenarios and back-stories Slaughter has hit on in recently memory, for the very fact that it feels uncomfortable contemporary;

From what Faith could tell, most of the men were just looking for a reason to camp out, get away from their wives, and pretend they were more important than their actual lives as accountants or used car salesman would indicate. The more dangerous factions were steeped in the theories of the Posse Comitatus, who believed that the government should be violently overthrown and returned to white Christian men.
Apparently, they lacked access to photographs of the majority of the United States Congress, the president, the cabinet, and most of the judges packed onto state and federal courts.

Amidst all this are Sara and Will, caught up in these factions with far-right extremists – though I won’t say how. I will however, say that what Slaughter illuminates on the true-background of such groups is terrifying. And it essentially boils down to; war breeds home-grown terrorists. There is a direct correlation, in fact, between white nationalist domestic terrorists and those with US military-backgrounds; men who come home from war feeling disenfranchised, broken, and discarded by their government – who have seen up close how grassroots terrorist organisations work from their fighting abroad, then apply those “lessons” to their own disillusionment and anger. And the fact that the US Government knows about this correlation – a comprehensive report was gathered in 2009, but “conservative politicians and media outlets jumped on the report,” the backlash was so severe DHS publicly apologized for the report and dismantled the team responsible for tracking far-right threats.

This is the breeding ground for bad-guys in ‘The Last Widow’, and it sees Sara go toe-to-toe with a Neo-Nazi militiaman;

She asked, “You ever notice how George Clooney never goes around telling people how handsome he is?”
Dash raised his eyebrows, expectant.
“It makes me curious – if you’re really a patriot, do you have to put it in your name?”
Dash chuckled, shaking his head. “I wonder, Dr. Earnshaw, if I was a writer, how would I descrive you in a book?”
Sara had read books by men like Dash. He would list the colour of her hair, the size of her breasts and the shape of her ass.

There are so many little asides throughout this book, when Slaughter absolutely goes to town on the likes of khaki-clad Charlottesville Nazis, and media pundits who think racism should be given parity. It’s delicious, sinister, sometimes overwhelming but so very accurate as to be remarkable. This is Slaughter at the top of her game – taking the real world and distorting it with just enough truth to make the crime-thriller notes that most more astute.

‘The Last Widow’ was an absolute thrill from beginning to end – but the characterisations within are also bang on, and the best they’ve been in the ‘Will Trent’ series for a while now (certainly since Sara and Will solidified their romantic relationship.)

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This is Karin Slaughter at her very best, and I just want more.

'The Kept Woman' Will Trent #8 by Karin Slaughter

From the BLURB:

A body is discovered in an empty Atlanta warehouse. It's the body of an ex-cop, and from the moment Special Agent Will Trent walks in he knows this could be the most devastating case of his career. Bloody footprints leading away from the scene reveal that another victim - a woman - has left the scene and vanished into thin air. And, worst of all, the warehouse belongs to the city's biggest, most politically-connected, most high-profile athlete - a local hero protected by the world's most expensive lawyers. A local hero Will has spent the last six months investigating on a brutal rape charge.

But for Will - and also for Dr Sara Linton, the GBI's newest medical examiner - the case is about to get even worse. Because an unexpected discovery at the scene reveals a personal link to Will's troubled past. The consequences will wreak havoc on his life and the lives of those he loves, those he works with, and those he pursues.

But Sara's scene-of-the-crime diagnosis is that they only have a few hours to find the missing woman before she bleeds out . . .

‘The Kept Woman’ is the eighth book in Karin Slaughter’s addictive crime series, about Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) officer, ‘Will Trent’.

This book follows on from the seventh, ‘Unseen’ in which Will and his girlfriend Sara Linton went through the fallout of a tough investigation, only to come out stronger and more committed in their relationship. Sara is the doctor/medical examiner from Slaughter’s original ‘Grant County’ series, and she’s the widow of that series’ protagonist, Jeffrey Tolliver. But Sara’s past and grief over Jeffrey has really been the smallest hurdle in her and Will’s new relationship – namely because Will is actually married, to his long-time friend and psychological torturer, Angie Polaski.

Will and Angie met as children in the crooked foster-care system; they suffered through extraordinary abuse at the hands of various foster parents and fellow children. Will and Angie both went on to become cops – Angie a bad cop, and Will as in all things, one of the good guys. Angie has been Will’s longest and steadfast friend, but she’s also his torturer – she knows all his weak spots, and she exploits them for her own gains in their twisted relationship. And Angie’s been working overtime lately, since Will and Sara started dating some eighteen months ago …

But when this book kicks off, it’s at a murder scene with at least two missing bodies – one of which has all signs pointing to Angie Polaski – thus forcing Will to confront the very idea he’s been secretly harbouring for most of his life; that his wife might really be dead, and out of his life for good.

Ok. So. I love Karin Slaughter and my love is well-documented. The last ‘Will Trent’ book we got was in 2013, so I have been ridiculously excited for ‘The Kept Woman’ – especially after Slaughter revealed early on that this book would feature the mysterious and merciless, Angie. And while I was reading I really was like a pig in muck; enjoying every second of this world and Slaughter’s writing that I’d been sorely missing for three years. But, but, but … when I got to the end, I really did have a moment of reflection on how this book impacts the characters overall going forward – and I came to the realisation that it really doesn’t. ‘The Kept Woman’ doesn’t change much of anything for the characters – and there was more emotional upheaval at the end of ‘Unseen’. That means ‘The Kept Woman’ has the tinge of a “filler-book” for me; with a lot of bells and whistles happening in the plot to make us feel like we’re moving toward some horrible, inevitable tilting, but by the end not a lot changes. Everything pretty much stays the same for the players in this game.

On the one hand – maybe maintaining a status-quo might be okay for the eighth book in a series (especially when we don’t know exactly how many books Slaughter has planned in this series? We may be only at the mid-way point?!) Sara Linton migrating from ‘Grant County’ to ‘Will Trent’ was a big shake-up of its own early on, and then her falling for Will was a huge development for both characters. But I do get worried when Slaughter keeps her characters (and readers) in a semi-decent stagnant space by the end of a book. We all know what happened in ‘Beyond Reach’ once Jeffrey and Sara reached that point, right?

So – yes – on the one hand ‘The Kept Woman’ let me down a little bit, because nothing really changes. Even some pretty big revelations that come to the surface won’t actually impact characters too much going forward … And it’s always a little sucky to get to the end of a 548-page book and think “Huh, we’re exactly where we started.”

But what I did admire in this book was Slaughter examining rape and sexual assault cases through the lens of media and stardom. There’s a case that Will has been working in this book, about an NBA star who is accused of violently raping and beating a drugged woman – Will was the lead investigator, taking the case through to trial … where he discovered his client’s background trashed the jury’s perception of her, witnesses were paid off or intimidated, and the whole thing fell apart. And all because the accused rapist – Marcus Rippy – is a multi-million dollar cash-cow for his sports agency.

Rippy’s case allows Slaughter to make some uncomfortable truths and shine a harsh light on how such cases play out in the glare of media spotlight and the ruthless court of public appeal. And what’s even more unsettling is how much the Rippy rape case mirrors real examples – like Kobe Bryant’s 2003 rape case, that established a new and nasty legacy for women trying to report against powerful and moneyed men. Even see what’s been happening to Amber Heard after she reported Johnny Depp for domestic violence abuse – a single photo appears of her smiling (HOW DARE SHE?!) and suddenly people think it’s an open and shut case of a gold-digger versus a rich megastar. Slaughter really goes to town on these notions, and it’s both nauseating and eye-opening;

Will didn’t respond, because there was nothing else to say. 

Faith gripped the steering wheel. ‘I have rape cases. You don’t throw a murder case to a jury and they ask, “Well, was the guy really murdered or is he lying because he wants the attention? And what was he doing in that part of town? And why was he drinking? And what about all those murderers he dated before?”’ 

‘She wasn’t sympathetic.’ Will hated that this even mattered. ‘Her family’s a mess. Single mom with a drug habit. No idea who the dad is. She had some drug issues in high school, a history of self-cutting. She was coming off academic probation at her college. She dated around, spent a lot of time on Tinder and OkCupid, like everybody her age. Rippy’s people found out she had an abortion a few years ago. She basically wrote their trial strategy for them.’

One more reason why ‘The Kept Woman’ didn’t sit overly well with me was that Sara Linton didn’t read … like herself in this book? She’s very much in a back-seat role, which I didn’t appreciate – but also her reactions felt, off? I know lots of people read ‘Grant County’ and now ‘Will Trent’ and thoroughly dislike Sara Linton. I’ve read it said that she’s a bit of a Mary Sue. I never felt that way – but in this book I did find her getting on my nerves, especially when Will’s life is being thrown off-kilter and he’s experiencing intense grief and Sara pretty much just wants him to get over it because Angie was a terrible human-being and he has her now. Yeah, there was just something tonally off about Sara and her reactions in this book? Also that she was relegated to the periphery.

I love Karin Slaughter, and while reading ‘The Kept Woman’ I did enjoy the ride. But upon reflection this books feels … stagnate. In a series where there’s been so many twists, turns and shake-ups, you really notice when one book makes a big show-and-dance about not actually advancing the story and players. It just sucks that I’ll probably be waiting another three years for the next instalment, and living in hope that these characters I’ve grown to love start marching forward with a bit more determination.

3/5

Series I read

So, I was having an interesting Twitter-talk with the lovely blogger Wendy Darling of Midnight Garden … we were discussing our love of Karin Slaughter and how dedicated we are to her series, and why. 

It’s an interesting thing to think about – the series you read. Especially interesting for me, when I think of the series I've stuck with for the long-haul, and those I've let fall by the wayside. 

There are actually plenty of books that I dropped half-way through their never-ending series and for various reasons. ‘Stephanie Plum’ just got stale. ‘The Hollows’ was writing relationship cheques that the characters weren’t cashing, in my opinion. ‘Anita Blake’ just got … not good … though I still recommend this series, just with the asterisks of; “They get really bad around ‘Obsidian Butterfly’ – you have been warned.” I’m even teetering with J.R. Ward’s ‘Black Dagger Brotherhood’ because it’s getting pretty ridiculous to just keep filtering in new characters I don’t give a damn about just to keep this world alive.  

So, there are plenty of series I've abandoned. Maybe I’ll get back to them one day (I do occasionally sneak-peeks at Amazon reviews of ‘The Hollows’ to see if Ivy and Rachel’s romance is being further developed) but I mostly think the ship has sailed.  

So what are the series I've committed to, and can’t see myself ever wavering from? What makes them so special? There aren’t many – but below are the (ongoing) series I read religiously and feel quite devoted to.  

Grant County by Karin Slaughter 

Karin Slaughter will always hold a special significance for me, and not just because ‘Blindsighted’ was the first book I ever reviewed on this blog. Rather, it’s because ‘Grant County’ was the first crime-thriller series I ever persevered with. In the past I'd tried making a dent in my mum’s impressive Patricia Cornwell collection, but was totally unmoved by the first book. And then I tried Slaughter (possibly because her name in crime-fiction seemed an easy win) and ‘Blindsighted’ absolutely hooked me. It wasn’t even that, as a novice in the genre, ‘Grant County’ was “lite” crime-fic (ask anyone; Slaughter writes some of the nastiest, goriest worst violence against women . . . sometimes, she reads like the Patrick Bateman of crime-fic) rather, what hooked me in Grant County was the characters and, more importantly, the relationship between series protagonists Sara Linton and Jeffrey Tolliver – the county coroner and local police chief, respectively . . . and ex-husband and wife. There was a moment in ‘Blindsighted’ when Jeffrey is really unprofessional and says this to Sara, after she’s conducted an autopsy;

‘Sometimes,’ he began, ‘when I wake up in the morning, I forget that you’re not there. I forget that I lost you.’ 

‘Kind of like when you forgot you were married to me?’ 

He walked toward her, but she stepped back until she was a few inches from the cabinet. He stood in front of her, his hands on her arms. 

‘I still love you.’ 

‘That’s not enough.’ 

He stepped closer to her. ‘What is?’

In my 2009 review of ‘Blindsighted’, I express an annoyance at how little Slaughter feeds readers about Jeffrey and Sara’s marital demise, especially since sparks are still there . . . it frustrated me then, but now I can see that that’s actually what kept me coming back to this series. Yes, the whodunit mysteries are terrifying and brilliant, but it was Slaughter’s impeccable and thorny characters and their relationships that kept me coming back. 

Will Trent by Karin Slaughter 

For that reason, I didn’t know if I could make the trek from ‘Grant County’ to her new ‘Will Trent’ series (especially after I felt so bruised following some ‘kill you darlings’ cruelty. . . ) but then Slaughter bought all the romantic complications of ‘Grant County’ and amplified them by including one of the most genuine and charming but horribly tortured characters, ever, in Will Trent. 

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

You want to know how much I love this series? I named my dog ‘Murray’, after the character of young Ian Murray (and mostly because ‘Rollo’ didn’t suit my little jackshund). This is the series that has my deep and abiding love, a love that will never waver and is willing to wait 5 years between books . . . It is a love that grows stronger with each new instalment, as I’m left to pine after characters and wonder on their predicaments (no mean feat, since books often finish on cliff-hangers that are more hand-biting than nail-biting). 

I started reading ‘Outlander’ back in 2007, and was quite lucky in that I got to consume books 1–6 over one summer holiday. Since then I've only had to wait for ‘An Echo in the Bone’ and now ‘Written in my Own Heart’s Blood’, which is coming June this year. Of course, when I tell people that I’ll have to clear a week of my life in order to sit down and properly read & appreciate Gabaldon’s latest offering, they look at me with a somewhat perplexed expression. These are 800+ page books (‘Written in My Own Heart’s Blood’ is actually rumoured to be 1008 pages) and the series is now eight-books deep . . . then I explain that these are kinda time-travelling books (but not really) that cover historical events like the Battle of Culloden and the American Revolution, but at the centre of it all is a love story between an ex-army nurse from the 1940s and a 1700’s Highland warrior called Jamie Fraser (*cue swoon*). At this point, I find myself alone on a soapbox talking to empty air. And that’s okay, I get it. These books are hard to surmise, and it doesn’t help when my love for them leaves me utterly inarticulate and I usually just grunt appreciatively; “Oh my God, Jamie is so amazing and these books are just so URGHkeejiwjwioeufjnkndewmdkwjo . . .  y’know?” 

Though I do fully anticipate that the Starz TV adaptation will bring quite a few newcomers to this wonderful series (I mean, have you seen the lead actor? Yowza). 

Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs

This is another series that I have a serious soft-spot for, because it was the first urban fantasy I ever read and it converted me to a genre that I'd previously been pretty snooty about. 

But, if I’m honest, I almost didn’t read beyond ‘Moon Called’. I remember at the time reading and enjoying it, but not being sure if it was a series I'd be sticking with … but then there was a moment in the last six pages. I can actually pinpoint the exact moment when I knew I'd be coming back for more;

… ‘So, Bran tells me that or ordered you to keep an eye out for me.’ 

He stopped laughing and raised both his eyebrows. ‘Yes. Now ask me if I was watching you for Bran.’ 

It was a trick question. I could see the amusement in his eyes. I hesitated, but decided I wanted to know anyway. ‘Okay, I’ll bite. Were you watching me for Bran?’ 

‘Honey,’ he drawled, pulling on his Southern roots. ‘When a wolf watches a lamb, he’s not thinking about the lamb’s mommy.’

And I was sucked right in. It was Briggs layering mythology on top of whodunit central-story and throwing in a tangled relationship web to boot. ‘Mercy Thompson’ remains the benchmark for all other urban fantasies for me. I can only think of one other UF author who has done such a fine job of building up a protagonist’s world from the ground-up …

Kate Daniels by Ilona Andrews

‘Kate’ and ‘Mercy’ came out around the same time (2007 and 2006, respectively) and have roughly the same number of books in the series right now. But they’re totally different, while also hooking me for very similar reasons.

Much like Mercy, when readers first met Kate in ‘Magic Bites’ she was the epitome of a loner. She had secrets to keep and a past to keep hidden, and she had been raised not to trust anybody but herself. But slowly, slowly husband/wife writing-duo Ilona Andrews teased out a love/hate relationship for Kate in the form of were-lion Curran. Now in the upcoming seventh book ‘Magic Breaks’ (out in July) the very fact that Kate has now accumulated a family and a whole community who depend on her – she has so much more to lose. 

I think both ‘Kate’ and ‘Mercy’ keep me coming back because I’m so invested in the heroines’ journey. I've seen them come leaps and bounds, completely change and transform for the people they love – and now all that they’ve gained is teetering on the edge and is in constant threat of being taken away from them. Of course I’m going to stick around for the long-haul, when the journey has been so rewarding.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Fiona Staples (Illustrator) 

I remember reading this and going, “Ohhh. Okay. Now I get it.” Now I get how people can be so obsessed with graphic novels/comic books. Now I get the impulse to rock up to a convention centre decked out like your favourite character. Now I get the visceral *need* to know what happens next, and not give a damn if you get drip-fed in small instalments that always end on a cliff-hanger. Now I get it, thanks to ‘Saga’. 

This is the first comic series I've dedicated myself to. I’m so obsessed that I can’t even wait for the Volume’s to be released, I now have a standing order to receive each instalment once a month.

What hooked me is just damn good story and these characters who I instantly started rooting for. It’s an intergalactic love-story about Alana and Marko who have gone AWOL from their respective armies in order to raise their daughter, Hazel. The story is actually narrated by Hazel, who is a baby when the story begins but is looking back and narrating as a somewhat older, wiser soul … and that’s probably what really hooked me. The knowledge that Hazel grows up and has her own problems somewhere in the future that she’ll get around to telling the reader, once we understand the whole background to her complicated life. I love it. I especially love that Brian K. Vaughan was inspired to have Hazel narrate by reading children’s books to his kids, which often adopt that sort of whimsy. 

'Unseen' Will Trent #7 by Karin Slaughter

 Received from NetGalley

From the BLURB:

Will Trent is a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent whose latest case has him posing as Bill Black, a scary ex-con who rides a motorcycle around Macon, Georgia, and trails an air of violence wherever he goes. The cover has worked and he has caught the eye of a wiry little drug dealer who thinks he might be a useful ally. But undercover and cut off from the support of the woman he loves, Sara Linton, Will finds his demons catching up with him.

Although she has no idea where Will has gone, or why, Sara herself has come to Macon because of a cop shooting: Her stepson, Jared, has been gunned down in his own home. Sara holds Lena, Jared’s wife, responsible: Lena, a detective, has been a magnet for trouble all her life, and Jared’s shooting is not the first time someone Sara loved got caught in the crossfire. Furious, Sara finds herself involved in the same case that Will is working without even knowing it, and soon danger is swirling around both of them.

*** WARNING: contains spoilers of the 'Grant County' series and previous 'Will Trent' books ***

The past is never quite done with Sara Linton. This much is true when she gets a frantic phone-call from Darnell “Nell” Long; high school girlfriend to Sara’s five-years dead husband, and mother to Jeffrey Tolliver’s estranged son, Jared. Nell has called Sara for solace and outrage – Jared has been shot in a home invasion, and is now fighting for his life. Nell believes his wife, Lena Adams, is somehow responsible and Sara’s first inclination is to agree.

Lena was Jeffrey’s partner on the Grant police force – big brother to her reckless little sister. And it was her recklessness that got Jeffrey killed in the end, of this Sara has no doubt – she also knows that Lena’s self-preservation and selfishness has stopped her from ever taking that full blame. Jared is a patrolman, but Lena heads up an elite police taskforce and Sara is certain that the break-in and attempted murder will somehow link back to Lena’s job and reckless attitude …

Georgia Bureau of Investigation officer, Will Trent, also believes Lena Adams is the most likely link between the break-in and a raid she lead, that went bust a few days ago. Will has investigated Lena in the past, over a witness who died in custody – he could make nothing stick then, but he’s half convinced that this time Lena’s true nature is going to come out. 

Will heads down to Macon as part of an undercover operation investigating a mysterious (and possibly phantom) ‘Big Whitey’ ring leader that may lead back to Lena’s raid and her husband’s near-death. But Will also knows Lena’s past with his girlfriend, Sara Linton – and he knows that Sara is heading down to Macon to be by her stepson’s side. What Sara doesn’t know is that Will is undercover, investigating the woman who Sara blames for her husband’s death …

‘Unseen’ is the seventh book in Karin Slaughter’s highly-addictive ‘Will Trent’ series.

When I read the blurb of ‘Unseen’ and realized that Lena Adams would be back, I decided to do a quick skim-read of the six ‘Grant County’ books. I wanted to go back and see Slaughter plant the seed of Lena Adams back in that original series … and because Lena’s return in the ‘Will Trent’ series and Sara’s life would undoubtedly bring back the death of Jeffrey Tolliver, the late and great protagonist of Slaughter’s ‘Grant County’ series.

What struck me in re-reading was that the Lena/Sara battle, which erupted after Jeffrey’s death, and has been slowly simmering ever since, had been raging since the ‘Grant County’ series. Pretty much every conversation between Sara and Jeffrey about Lena includes Sara warning him about trying to save her or suggesting he give her enough rope to hang herself. And I remember thinking, in passing, that it was odd that Sara was constantly (often, begrudgingly) commenting on Jeffrey’s sexual prowess and indiscretions in the series; but she never framed Lena as a threat to their marriage or Jeffrey’s wandering eye. Though there was one instance when Sara herself mused that it would have been easier if Jeffrey and Lena had sexual chemistry – that’s a lot easier to dispel than the brotherly/fatherly hero complex he developed for his deputy. Lena and Sara had always been at foreshadowed loggerheads, and I think fans have been waiting for another showdown between the two since after Jeffrey’s death (which I believe rests squarely on Lena’s shoulders). 

Having said all my bias, I will point out that since I started reviewing Karin Slaughter (and expressing my molten hatred of Lena Adams) many have pointed out to me that she is a beloved character to some readers who appreciate her shades of grey and ‘down-but-never-out’ attitude … Now, this baffles me because I’ve despised Lena from the first, and my hatred only increased after ‘Beyond Reach.’ I always thought Slaughter wrote Lena Adams as a ‘villain’ (and the worst kind, at that; the kind of villain who thinks they’re actually the good guy.) But having re-read ‘Grant County’ and now ‘Unseen’, I can (begrudgingly) see those shades-of-grey Lena-supporters are harping on about. Regardless, it put me in an odd position for ‘Unseen’ – I had to grit my teeth throughout all of Lena’s chapters, and my skin literally crawled when I read about her marriage to Jared, Jeffrey’s estranged child and Sara’s stepson (who bears a striking resemblance to Jeffrey). It also meant I was 100% on Sara’s side when she goes into this new Lena Adams debacle, to be by her stepson’s bedside; 

Her head ached. Her muscles twitched. It was as if all the wires that held together her body had suddenly gone taut. 

Or maybe it wasn’t adrenaline. Maybe it was anger, because by the time Sara walked into the hospital, she was so angry that she could barely function. No – she wasn’t just angry. She was furious. 

Furious to be here. Furious that she wasn’t home taking a shower or eating breakfast or walking the dogs or sleeping in her bed or going about her normal life. Furious that yet again, she’d become ensnared in another one of Lena Adams’s deadly webs. 

If the wires had gone taut, it was only because Lena had pulled them.

Though I will say I was glad that it’s not just Sara who seems to have cottoned on to Lena’s ways; 

He’d spent a lifetime dealing with damaged women like Lena Adams. Their motivations were easy to read once you knew what to look for. “She’d never take a bribe. She does bad things, but she always thinks she’s doing them for the right reason.” 

“Whatever.” Faith had never been a fan of nuance. 

When I knew Lena Adams would be front-and-centre of this new ‘Will Trent’ book (and with such good timing, considering Sara and Will’s somewhat settled romance) I had hoped that would mean Jeffrey Tolliver’s memory would be front-and-centre too. And, he is, to an extent. But Sara is very aware that she’s with Will now, and in a far better place than right after Jeffrey died and she even attempted to take her own life. Though Jared is Nell’s son and his adopted father was Jeffrey’s best friend, Sara doesn’t want to get dragged back into the spiral of being Jeffrey’s widow … and that causes her a lot of guilt. It’s not that she doesn’t miss or still love Jeffrey, but being around the people he grew up with who aren’t yet used to seeing her a little more whole after his death, that drags her down. I completely get it; and the fact that ‘Unseen’ is shared narrative with both Will and Lena who have more to worry about than the ghost of Jeffrey Tolliver for the majority of this book … still, I’m a reading masochist and I almost wanted Sara and Slaughter to constantly pick at the wound of Jeffrey (I just miss him so much! Re-reading his death in ‘Beyond Reach’ made me blubber like a baby all over again). But there were other ways I was hoping Jeffrey’s memory would live on in this book – I was hoping for lengthy interactions between Sara and Jared, for instance. 

Another reason ‘Unseen’ isn’t an ode-to-Jeffrey is that this is very much an important book for Will and Sara. There’s a big hurdle in here for them, and after they’ve already been through so much (Will’s secretive past and psychotic wife, not withstanding). This is such a gloriously important book for Will and Sara, and in terms of developing these characters and their relationship – Slaughter gets top stars. Fans will be delighted for what ‘Unseen’ means for them, and future books will be even more interesting.

It always seems that when reviewing the latest Karin Slaughter book, I harp on a lot about the relationships and not the crime crux. Look, it’s Slaughter so you know it’s going to be good – ‘Unseen’ is another of her gory and bleak dramas, that will keep you guessing and careening down the plotted path right until the last page. But, like I always say, I come back and stick by Slaughter for the characters. I love how gloriously messy and frustrating their lives are, the tangled webs of their romances and relationships. ‘Unseen’ is a stellar instalment for the fact that Slaughter has found new facets in the lives of these old characters; and given fans something to look forward to in their futures and upcoming instalments.

5/5

'Criminal' Will Trent/Atlanta #4 by Karin Slaughter

 Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

1974: In the blistering heat of an Atlanta summer, a killer prowls the street, searching for the weak, the vulnerable and the lost.

40 years later, a young woman is found brutally murdered in a sordid high-rise apartment. The specifics of her death are detailed and macabre, but for Special Agent Will Trent they are startlingly familiar, and can only mean one thing.

Desperate to deny this might be happening to him, he is forced to return to the home he grew up in, to the grimy crime-ridden streets, to a childhood he has spent the best part of his adult life trying to avoid.

As the body count rises, and the tension on the inner-city streets starts to simmer, Will becomes convinced that the clue to the killings now, and in 1974, may lie in his own past; a past that he hates yet feels responsible for.

And that the killer is much, much closer to him than anyone thought possible.

** Contains SPOILERS of previous books in the ‘Grant County’ and ‘Will Trent/Atlanta’ series **

Atlanta, 1974. Lucy Bennett is a good girl gone bad, turning tricks on the street with the other no-hope whores. Then a man comes along. He knows her name. He wants to save her.

Present day. Will Trent and Sara Linton are a tentative three weeks into their new relationship. There’s the small problem of Will’s ex-cop wife, Angie, leaving vaguely threatening post-it notes on Sara’s car. And the fact that Will has built a tall fortress around his heart and refuses to discuss his terrible childhood spent in foster homes, on the street or in the bad part of town, in a place called Techwood. But Sara has felt an undeniable pull towards Will ever since she first met him, something she finds somewhat miraculous since the tragic death of her husband.

Atlanta 1975. Officers Amanda Wagner and Evelyn Mitchell are sent to investigate a rape in Techwood; a notorious apartment complex full of prostitutes, pimps and people with too little money to get the hell out. When the women arrive they find a flying-high prostitute and a whole lot of trouble, but no rape victim.

Present day. Will Trent is working a dud soliciting case at the airport, punishment for something meaningless from his superior in the Georgia Bureau, Amanda Wagner. And then a new case makes headlines in the city – a young woman is missing. She looks eerily familiar to Will . . . and when all clues lead to Techwood, he knows why.

‘Criminal’ is the fourth book in Karin Slaughter’s immensely popular ‘Will Trent/Atlanta’ crime series.

It’s that time of year again – when I pick up the latest Karin Slaughter and wander the streets of Atlanta with some of my all-time favourite characters. Oh, how I have missed the likes of Will Trent, Faith Mitchell and Amanda Wagner of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. And, of course, everybody’s favourite Sara Linton whose trek from the original ‘Grant County’ series was officially solidified in her romance with Will in third book, ‘Fallen’.

Something I really enjoyed in the last ‘Will Trent/Atlanta’ installment was Slaughter’s small glimpses into what the 1970’s police force was like for female officers. In ‘Fallen’, we learned more about Amanda Wagner and Evelyn Mitchell, through their reminiscing about the early days in the force when there was no such thing as ‘sexual harassment’ and the black officers didn’t even have a precinct building. I was really fascinated by the tidbits Amanda shared, so was delighted to learn that in ‘Criminal’, Slaughter would be taking us back to the 1970’s, as a present-day investigation has echoes of the past . . .

Amanda Wagner is in her early 20’s when we meet her in 1975. She is the daughter of Duke Wagner, a veteran of the Atlanta police force who has recently been fired, along with many other white senior officers, when a new (black) chief is appointed and does a shake-up of the totem pole. Though she is police royalty around these parts, Amanda knows her place in the hierarchy – and that is bottom of the rung. The colored and white officers may be at constant logger-heads, with barely-restrained tension wafting through the office . . . but the men are all united in one thing; their disdain of skirts in uniform. Sure, female officers are given equal pay and they wear the same uniform (exact same – down to their men’s shoes) but catcalls are their morning greeting at roll-call, Amanda is expected to write reports for her lazy superior and avoiding a game of grab-ass with whoever her partner is for the day is just part of the job. Evelyn Mitchell is a different story. She’s happily married to an understanding man, and she has a baby boy at home. But after a year or so on maternity leave she’s back, and none of the other female officers can understand why, exactly. Sometimes Evelyn doesn’t really know why either; like all the other women, she hates the way she’s treated by the men, though she can’t even dream of a day when things will be different or better. And then something unusual happens. Evelyn and Amanda are assigned together, on a job that takes them to Techwood and down a rabbit hole of intrigue. . .

The 1970’s Atlanta police force was a God-awful place, as Slaughter brilliantly details. It was a hot-bed for sexism and racism, a veritable jungle where white men ruled and everyone else was just fodder. Slaughter dipped into this in ‘Fallen’, when she explained that it wasn’t until 1962 that black officers were even allowed to arrest white suspects. But with ‘Criminal’ being partly set in 1975, Slaughter is able to go into the nitty-gritty truths of what it was like back then. And it was not pretty, at all. For one thing, it wasn’t too long ago that the Klan was running the Atlanta police force – it was compulsory for officers to join the Klan upon entering the force, and paying their dues to them same as they did the Fraternal Order of Police. Even after black officers joined the force many of the higher-up officers (Amanda’s father included) kept their affiliation with the Klan; she puts it down to their German roots, but it’s also simply the fact that it’s what they know, their tradition. Slaughter writes the warfare between colored and white officers as always at boiling-point, with the potential to tip over at any second;

The radio clicked. Amanda heard the in-and-out of a man’s voice. There were pockets all over the city where the radios had little or no reception, but that wasn’t the problem. A black officer was calling for backup, which meant the white officers were blocking the transmission by clicking the buttons on their mics. In the next hour, a white officer would call for help and the blacks would do the same.
And then someone with the Atlanta Journal or Constitution would write an article wondering why there had been a recent spike in crime.

But the barely-restrained hatred between white and colored officers is nothing compared to what the women put up with. Quite a few times Amanda or Evelyn touch on the feminist and Women’s movement going on around them (Gloria Steinem is a prominent figure by this point, with Germaine Greer slowly gaining recognition). But none of that affects the Atlanta police department. Sexual harassment is rife, and none of the women are seen as being proper officers. I expected all of that, to be honest. But what I found really chilling was the way the women just take it, as par for the course. I loved Slaughter’s characterization of a young Amanda Wagner – having only known her as the present-day head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, it was a total head-spin to read her as this meek 20-something officer. Amanda joined the force, mostly, because her daddy was a cop and she wanted to be one too. When we meet her she pushes down her irritations and hurt at the way the male officers treat her – and she doesn’t even stand up for her fellow female officers when the sexual harassment comes frighteningly close to sexual assault. But throughout the course of ‘Criminal’, and during a life-changing investigation, Slaughter slowly puts the pieces of Amanda’s puzzle together . . . we read how she and Evelyn rise above their stations, and we catch glimpses of the tough old girls they will one day become. It is glorious;

Evelyn said, “I wasn’t sure I could go back after Zeke.” She took a deep breath. “But then I thought about how good it feels when I roll up on a call and a woman sees that I’m in charge, and she sees that her boyfriend or husband or whoever’s been whaling on her has to answer my questions. It makes me feel like I’m doing something. I guess it’s how the coloreds feel when a black cop shows up. They feel like they’re talking to someone who understands them.”
Amanda had never thought about it that way, but she supposed it made sense.

‘Criminal’ flips between 1975, during Amanda and Evelyn’s investigation into a slew of prostitution deaths, to present-day Will Trent and Sara Linton navigating their new relationship when a missing-person case side-lines them, and opens old wounds.

I really liked the switching between 1975 and present-day, and I feel like Slaughter really concentrated on character-building during her present-day chapters. ‘Criminal’ is, without a doubt, Will’s book. I refuse to give anything away, but this is the novel in which readers and Sara learn all about Will’s terrible past and why he is the way he is. . . and I loved that. I always say that what keeps me coming back to Slaugher’s series’ is the messy but fascinating lives of her protagonists –and I feel like I got those delicious complications in spades for Sara and Will in ‘Criminal’. I thought that at the end of ‘Fallen’, with the reappearance of Will’s crazy wife Angie, that ‘Criminal’ would have a larger focus on her as a complication for Will and Sara’s new relationship. But I can now see that there was a lot more that Sara had to know about Will’s childhood before Slaughter could start dealing with his current romantic predicaments . . . but I will say that I have high-hopes that the next ‘Will Trent/Atlanta’ book will have a big focus on those very predicaments.

‘Criminal’ was an incredible installment in Slaughter’s addictive series. In this fourth book that switches between past and present Atlanta, we read about the case which shaped Amanda Wagner and Evelyn Mitchell into the powerful women they would one day become. And we discover how Will’s past has been plaguing and holding power over him since childhood, likewise determining the man he has become.

5/5