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: Home Sweet Home (2013)

A young married couple, Frank (Adam MacDonald) and Sara (Meghan Heffern), return home after a date night. They have left their infant son at Sara’s mother so that they have their alone time. However, while they were out, a killer has invaded their safe haven and stripped them of their sanctuary. Going through what looks like well-practiced motions of preparing the evening, the killer (Shaun Benson) has the windows screwed shut and bolted, deactivating the alarm, cutting the phone lines and goes through all their possessions and gets to know the family.

Upon their return, they go about the night regularly, chatting, laughing, showering and doing their thing. The killer takes this moment to be the prime moment to take out Frank, though I feel that it was very rapid and rushed. Sara is the next target, though she is not to be killed so suddenly. The killer binds her to with cable ties, and insists on putting lipstick on her and taking photos of them together, almost like their very own date night.

“I’ll calm down now, I promise.” – Sara

Desperate to escape, Sara soon starts retaliating and thinking further than just crying. It is soon established that Frank was not dead but is butchered by the killer when trying to call for help. Scalping Frank, the killer drops the scalp into Sara’s lap, and she freaks. The killer encounters unforeseen circumstances that affect his perfectly planned night when the security company sends a security guard (Marty Adams) to investigate why the silent alarm was triggered. During the killer’s distraction, Sara manages to escape and get to a phone and calls for help while the killer is hot at her heels to find her.

Will Sara be able to outsmart the killer until help arrives? Will the security company react fast enough and send out help to save a woman who has just had her life ripped apart? Who is this methodical killer and why does he do the things he does?

A 4.5/10. So many reviews said this was great and I was excited to see but I have to disagree. Look, the camera work was fantastic, and the gore/blood looked very good. The end of the movie saved the entire film a bit for me, though the ending was pretty much preposterous. This movie was one that I wanted to like, but just could not get into all the way. It entertained me in that sense of “run, dammit, run!” and “what the hell was that?!” and “shhhhh!”, which is something I have always loved about horrors and psychological thrillers, but then an inordinate amount of the logic was so broken I was stunned. Look, some random tool breaking into your home and doing such terrible things is never what anyone wants but it is like their survival instinct went right out the window. Fight back. Unlock the gun first before making stupid moves, stay on the line with your security company, and barricade yourself in a room! Also the movie took forever to start and didn’t progress at a decent pace at all. It was just over thirty two minutes in when anything finally started happening, and it was not like the preceding thirty two minutes were very much of anything except excruciating preparation and some daft talk after coming home from a date night. The movie was not the worst horror/thriller of all time, but lacked a kick to make it fresh. The concept was same old, but I sincerely felt a lot of the time that this belonged on Eric over at the IPC’s WHY list… truly!