Review: Indelible – Karin Slaughter

Grant County #4

SYNOPSIS: An officer is shot point-blank in the Grant County police station and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver is wounded, setting off a terrifying hostage situation with medical examiner Sara Linton at the center. Working outside the station, Lena Adams, newly reinstated to the force, and Frank Wallace, Jeffrey’s second in command, must try to piece together who the shooter is and how to rescue their friends before Jeffrey dies. For the sins of the past have caught up with Sara and Jeffrey – with a vengeance … – via IMDB

Man, I feel that this book is super rewarding, especially for those of us who truly enjoy the relationship between Sara and Jeffrey. Every book gives us a piece here and there to keep us going, but not really an awful lot to chew on. Indelible kicks it up with telling a modern crime deeply embroiled in the past, and it all ties together really well.

I was glad to not have to read all about Lena and her crap in this one (trust me, it cropped up, but it didn’t dominate as much as usual). I was far more hooked on reading about the early stages between Sara and Jeffrey, to see how well things started, to know how they went sour, and to see how they are struggling to bring things together. That being said, the struggling is totally because Sara is being selfish. Just saying. It is so interesting to read more about where Jeffrey is from. We know a lot more about Sara, but not an awful lot about Jeffrey, and to see where he came from and what has done with himself is great.

Jumping between the past and the present didn’t frustrate me one little bit in this book, as it just works. Again, the consistency Slaughter writes with is amazing. The little characteristics, idiosyncrasies, phrases, etc. of the characters she sprinkles throughout the book that look like throwaway things that actually aren’t are so cool. I like it. The characters that Slaughter has built are like real people to me, which is a rarity for an author to legitimately achieve. They do not come across as forced, and I like it. You cheer for them, hurt for them, stress with them, commisserate with them, understand them as well as get angry with them.

Indelible is another solid offering from Karin Slaughter. The writing style breezes along and the story is engaging from the off, dragging you in completely and rewarding you with new characters, incidents, and a juicy chunk of the past shared by Sara and Jeffrey. Recommended.

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.