Atlanta, Georgia. Present day. A young woman is brutally attacked and left for dead. The police investigate but the trail goes cold. Until a chance assignment takes GBI investigator Will Trent to the state penitentiary, and to a prisoner who says he recognises the MO. The attack looks identical to the one he was accused of eight years earlier. The prisoner’s always insisted that he was innocent, and now he’s sure he has proof. The killer is still out there.
As Will digs into both crimes it becomes clear that he must solve the original case in order to reach the truth. Yet nearly a decade has passed—time for memories to fade, witnesses to vanish, evidence to disappear. And now he needs medical examiner Sara Linton to help him hunt down a ruthless murderer. But when the past and present collide, everything Will values is at stake…
***
I dived into this novel head first and what ad ride I got. Not only are the team racing against the time to a potential serial killer who has gone unnoticed for years and potentially free a man, they are also digging up the past in a case which could tear Will and Sara apart.
To begin the novel things aren’t in a good place between Will and Sara and neither know how to get past it, but things go from bad to worse when a case of Jeffery’s is called into question, and the entirety of the Grant County police force with it. Sara immerses herself back into that old life to try and solve the case and prove the man she loved wasn’t capable of deliberately putting away the wrong man, while Will tries to find the serial killer still going strong today to not only save lives, but save his relationship also. To add another twist the only other person who worked on the case and can still answer questions is Lena Adams, the woman who is responsible for Jeffery’s murder.
We flick between the past and the present in this book in a new twist. The past is told from Jeffery’s perspective and the present from Will and Sara’s as normal. What was really nice was to see how Sara has changed (or not) over the years since then, especially as the case in the past takes place after Jeffery has been caught cheating and they are divorced.
I must admit, Sara hasn’t changed an awful lot, and I feel pretty confident in saying that as I’ve read all the Grant County novels in order to this one. It was really nice though to go back and revisit Jeffery and put his ghost to rest. While Will and Sara may have made a pledge to move forward with their lives, Jeffery was always in the background of their relationship, and not helped by Sara’s mother holding him in such a high regard.
While this novel is obviously about a serial killer, it’s more about Will and Sara’s relationship, and I think this is pretty obvious as the killer is apparent from an early point in the novel. Normally I’m guessing all the way, but I figured it out pretty quickly and I can’t tell if that was planned or not. Either way, the thrill of the chase meant that even though I may have known the killer, I was guessing how Will and Sara were going to confront them, and if they would get away with it.
Like all of Karin Slaughter’s book you aren’t going to be disappointed with this one. It’s another great entry into the series, and I know some died-heard Jeffery fans will love that he’s back. It doesn’t have to be read as part of the series (none of her books do) but I do recommend reading at least the Atlanta series, if not the Grant County and Atlanta series. There’s a reason Karin Slaughter is one of the most well-known crime writers around, and it’s because of her gift to write beautiful, complex and not always very likeable characters and make you invested in their story, all the while solving some brutal murders and putting bad guys away. What’s not to like?
mbc84blog.wordpress.com 