Review: Cop Town – Karin Slaughter

SYNOPSIS: Atlanta, 1974: As a brutal murder and a furious manhunt rock the city’s police department, Kate Murphy wonders if her first day on the job will also be her last. She’s determined to defy her privileged background by making her own way—wearing a badge and carrying a gun. But for a beautiful young woman, life will be anything but easy in the macho world of the Atlanta PD, where even the female cops have little mercy for rookies. It’s also the worst day possible to start given that a beloved cop has been gunned down, his brothers in blue are out for blood, and the city is on the edge of war.

Kate isn’t the only woman on the force who’s feeling the heat. Maggie Lawson followed her uncle and brother into the ranks to prove her worth in their cynical eyes. When she and Kate, her new partner, are pushed out of the citywide search for a cop killer, their fury, pain, and pride finally reach the boiling point. With a killer poised to strike again, they will pursue their own line of investigation, risking everything as they venture into the city’s darkest heart. – via Goodreads

I absolutely couldn’t wait for this when I saw Karin Slaughter was bringing her latest offering to the table. I am sure by now you all know that I am a massive fan of hers, I absolutely love her work. I think she is extremely talented, and I really wish that more people would read her work. This was one of her standalone novels, not part of any series. On one hand, breaking away from all the characters we get so involved with shows that she can write about more than one group of people, Slaughter certainly has diversity, and this tells another story. I love the books she writes where she writes about Atlanta in the seventies, heavy to think that it was not long ago that women were still clawing their way into certain careers. A whole new and fresh set of characters came forth, and I really liked both Maggie and Kate, though they are truly polar opposites of one another. I respected Kate a lot. Initially she was someone without a spine, someone who pitied herself, but later she grew, she changed, looked at life without her cosy shelter she had always had. Her character development was really great to follow. Maggie, on the other hand, was shrouded in a lot of secrecy, which very slowly but surely fell away, also revealing a more complex person. It grated on me to read about how men perceived women on the police force, etc. I don’t know, I believe we should be left to do whatever we so choose. This book was a wonderful introduction of the characters, and it was rich and descriptive. It was another brilliant offering from Slaughter, and is a great book to look into if you are interested in reading one of her novels that do not tie into another series of books.