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fkshg8465's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I think this was her first published book. It was good, but the other ones I’ve read by her were so much better. Still, it’s good getting to know Will Trent’s doctor friend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Violence, Murder, Emotional abuse, Death, Adult/minor relationship, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Medical content, Suicide, Addiction, Misogyny, Homophobia, Incest, Suicide attempt, Confinement, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Infertility, Stalking, Sexual violence, Torture, Alcohol, Blood, Abortion, Gaslighting, Gore, and Kidnapping
alindeman's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
This is my second Karin Slaughter book. It’s not as interesting or well written as Pretty Girls, but it’s also not as disturbing. (This is still plenty disturbing tho). The mystery was interesting. I like Sara Linton and learning her story was heartbreaking. Jeffrey sucks. Like he almost doesn’t suck and then he’ll just do or say something (or not do or say something) and then I’m like yeah you suck. Lena is awful oh my god she’s insufferable Jesus Christ get therapy. So safe to say none of the characters are particularly likable which I think probably really takes away from things for me. I think I would like this book/series much more if I was strongly rooting for one or more characters. Like I like Sara but even then she does some stupid shit and I’m like why do I like you again?? Also the writing… idk it’s like not bad but there were a few times where the way Karin wrote something struck me as kind of problematic. Not even from the characters POV just like general narration. But yeah the only thing going for these books for me is the mystery of the crime.
Check TW for this book!!!!!
Plot summary for when I forget (major TW for violence & SA):
Sara Linton is the pediatrician and coroner for this small town. Her ex-husband is the sheriff. Sara goes to the bathroom in the town diner and finds a woman stabbed and dying. She tries to save her but she dies, she was murdered. This woman is the sister of a detective named Lena. Lena sucks she’s so mean but like mean bc has trauma and needs therapy. Desperately. I just can’t stand the characters who are like “I’m so tough fuck you I don’t need anyone, actually I’m crying on the inside but I won’t tell anyone” grow up! Anyways. The woman was killed in a seemingly ritualistic way, slashed in the form of a cross. No real suspects.
Then while Sara is at the hospital a woman is dumped on the hood of her car. She is still alive and Sara saves her. She has holes in her hands and feet and it’s clear she was in like a crucifixion pose. She was drugged with belladonna which is apparently like not a drug to be fucked around with its super tricky and lethal. She won’t talk to anyone. Finally Lena gets her to talk and obviously she’s super traumatized and Lena does such an awful fucking job interviewing her that the girl manages to steal her gun and kill herself. With the gun to her head Lena is still fucking INTERROGATING HER!!!! Basically the belladonna makes things like not hurt and gives you a flying feeling and in a way made her captivity more pleasant which made it more traumatic in the end bc she probably felt so much guilt and shame. And in response to the girl hinting at this Lena says “are you saying you enjoyed it?” And then she pulls the trigger. I hate Lena so fucking much what the fuck is wrong with you why would you say that?!??? She’s honestly such an awful cop she always says the wrong things.
So she’s dead sadly but the realize this is like super religious and ritualistic.
Jeffrey makes Lena take time off after the girls suicide and she gets kidnapped. We don’t know by who but we know she knows him. The story continues as she’s held captive, they don’t realize right away.
Sara’s sister tells Sara “you have to tell Jeffrey” and you’re like tell him what?? And she leaves a case file for him and you learn that when she was working at a hospital like one county over she was horrifically attacked. It seems kind of similar- she was raped by a religious dude who then stabbed her like Jesus was stabbed. Jeffrey loses his mind at his wife being hurt like that and wants to pay the offender a visit. He’s so sad for her but doesn’t know what to say and so just doesn’t contact her. Again, he was so close to being good and then he sucks. She bared her soul and he ignored her. So he visits the rapist who is NOT in prison (of fucking course) even tho he raped 2 more women after her. He’s on house arrest and is 1 strike away from going back to prison which he desperately doesn’t want to do. It doesn’t seem that he could be the perpetrator bc of his ankle monitor. Regardless Jeff wants to grill him. He breaks into his home and finds he has a gun- bingo that’s leverage. He confronts the dude and breaks his ankle monitor so his parole lady will show up. Based on how horrific Jeff’s case is she lets him talk to the rapist. He’s obviously psycho and he keeps tabs on Sara. The go over the case and it’s revealed that Sara’s car getting keyed with the word “cunt” wasn’t his doing which Jeff finds suspicious. He has the parole lady get him a list of the doctors Sara worked with but it doesn’t ring a bell.
Meanwhile they’re interviewing the bf of the girl who committed suicide, which is a piece of shit. He conveniently forgot to mention he saw her being dragged into a car by a man. Oops.
The girl had told Lena before she died that there was a persistent “clink clink clink” of dripping water.
Sara visits the house of the guy she’s kind of seeing, Jeb. And she hears the clink clink clink. So now you know it’s him. But she doesn’t.
She has a date with him. He’s at her house and brings wine. The wine is sour, like vinegar. Sara knows the victims were given vinegar. She is now on alert. Then he talks about his dead sister and shows her a photo. She recognizes the photo. The girl was a patient she treated who died from a botched at home abortion. Sara now knows he’s the killer (probably). She excuses herself to change and tries to call Jeff but the phone is off the hook. He follows her with a knife, he knows she knows. She jumps out the window, dives into the lake. He gets in a boat, chasing her. He crashes and capsizes. He can’t swim, he’s drowning. He sinks to the bottom. She doesn’t want him to die for some reason, maybe bc it’s too easy a death (that’s my thought) so she tries to rescue him but it’s freezing cold and he’s so heavy she’s totally about to die. Jeff arrives and saves her. He got a second list and turns out Jeb was a pharmacist working at the same hospital as her and the message “cunt” was found for every victim, including Lena (oh yeah they found her missing from her house).
Jeb is dead and they rescue Lena. I think that’s it
Check TW for this book!!!!!
Plot summary for when I forget (major TW for violence & SA):
Then while Sara is at the hospital a woman is dumped on the hood of her car. She is still alive and Sara saves her. She has holes in her hands and feet and it’s clear she was in like a crucifixion pose. She was drugged with belladonna which is apparently like not a drug to be fucked around with its super tricky and lethal. She won’t talk to anyone. Finally Lena gets her to talk and obviously she’s super traumatized and Lena does such an awful fucking job interviewing her that the girl manages to steal her gun and kill herself. With the gun to her head Lena is still fucking INTERROGATING HER!!!! Basically the belladonna makes things like not hurt and gives you a flying feeling and in a way made her captivity more pleasant which made it more traumatic in the end bc she probably felt so much guilt and shame. And in response to the girl hinting at this Lena says “are you saying you enjoyed it?” And then she pulls the trigger. I hate Lena so fucking much what the fuck is wrong with you why would you say that?!??? She’s honestly such an awful cop she always says the wrong things.
So she’s dead sadly but the realize this is like super religious and ritualistic.
Jeffrey makes Lena take time off after the girls suicide and she gets kidnapped. We don’t know by who but we know she knows him. The story continues as she’s held captive, they don’t realize right away.
Sara’s sister tells Sara “you have to tell Jeffrey” and you’re like tell him what?? And she leaves a case file for him and you learn that when she was working at a hospital like one county over she was horrifically attacked. It seems kind of similar- she was raped by a religious dude who then stabbed her like Jesus was stabbed. Jeffrey loses his mind at his wife being hurt like that and wants to pay the offender a visit. He’s so sad for her but doesn’t know what to say and so just doesn’t contact her. Again, he was so close to being good and then he sucks. She bared her soul and he ignored her. So he visits the rapist who is NOT in prison (of fucking course) even tho he raped 2 more women after her. He’s on house arrest and is 1 strike away from going back to prison which he desperately doesn’t want to do. It doesn’t seem that he could be the perpetrator bc of his ankle monitor. Regardless Jeff wants to grill him. He breaks into his home and finds he has a gun- bingo that’s leverage. He confronts the dude and breaks his ankle monitor so his parole lady will show up. Based on how horrific Jeff’s case is she lets him talk to the rapist. He’s obviously psycho and he keeps tabs on Sara. The go over the case and it’s revealed that Sara’s car getting keyed with the word “cunt” wasn’t his doing which Jeff finds suspicious. He has the parole lady get him a list of the doctors Sara worked with but it doesn’t ring a bell.
Meanwhile they’re interviewing the bf of the girl who committed suicide, which is a piece of shit. He conveniently forgot to mention he saw her being dragged into a car by a man. Oops.
The girl had told Lena before she died that there was a persistent “clink clink clink” of dripping water.
Sara visits the house of the guy she’s kind of seeing, Jeb. And she hears the clink clink clink. So now you know it’s him. But she doesn’t.
She has a date with him. He’s at her house and brings wine. The wine is sour, like vinegar. Sara knows the victims were given vinegar. She is now on alert. Then he talks about his dead sister and shows her a photo. She recognizes the photo. The girl was a patient she treated who died from a botched at home abortion. Sara now knows he’s the killer (probably). She excuses herself to change and tries to call Jeff but the phone is off the hook. He follows her with a knife, he knows she knows. She jumps out the window, dives into the lake. He gets in a boat, chasing her. He crashes and capsizes. He can’t swim, he’s drowning. He sinks to the bottom. She doesn’t want him to die for some reason, maybe bc it’s too easy a death (that’s my thought) so she tries to rescue him but it’s freezing cold and he’s so heavy she’s totally about to die. Jeff arrives and saves her. He got a second list and turns out Jeb was a pharmacist working at the same hospital as her and the message “cunt” was found for every victim, including Lena (oh yeah they found her missing from her house).
Jeb is dead and they rescue Lena. I think that’s it
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Body horror, Blood, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide, Death, Rape, Medical content, Kidnapping, and Violence
Minor: Addiction and Drug abuse
xanthippe's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Kidnapping, Addiction, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Body horror, Death, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Abortion, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Stalking, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Sexual violence, Excrement, Infertility, Incest, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Torture
quinnoriel's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Police brutality, Sexual harassment, Racism, Incest, Sexual content, Murder, Medical trauma, Violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Sexual violence, Grief, Excrement, Gore, Infertility, Torture, Suicide, Medical content, Body horror, Alcoholism, Stalking, and Self harm
yunna's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This book is FILTHY GOOD. THIS IS A CRIME THRILLER DONE RIGHT. Multilayered characters and storyline? Different POVs? and most importantly well-researched detective work and medical knowledge!
Had a hard time at first as I don't normally read gore stuff like this. But push past that and it's an incredible ride.
I really admire Sara's resilience. She's such a strong FMC. The fact that she's a pediatrician who has a coroner side job just screams badass. I also love the tension in her relationship with Jeff. Battling personal and interpersonal issues while going on and saving people's lives is not an easy task. It's not so hard to relate their lives to ours. And the fact that things like that happen to them, makes you think you're in a much better situation.
Blinsighted tackled the effect of trauma. The differences in the survivor's willingness to live after going through hell, and how it can alter the direction of their life.
Notice also the subtlety of how she portrayed the stages of grieving in the life of Lena.
And the horror of how one perceives something. I cannot fcking get it to my head how someone could interpret the bible that way. Goes to show how differently the mind really works in each of us. Give just a small twisted belief to a psycho and they'll worship living it that way for the rest of their life.
and the fact that they live amongst us, and walk among us is crazy. Makes one paranoid, how well do you know a person? Even when you seem like you know them, you don't.
Had a hard time at first as I don't normally read gore stuff like this. But push past that and it's an incredible ride.
I really admire Sara's resilience. She's such a strong FMC. The fact that she's a pediatrician who has a coroner side job just screams badass. I also love the tension in her relationship with Jeff. Battling personal and interpersonal issues while going on and saving people's lives is not an easy task. It's not so hard to relate their lives to ours. And the fact that things like that happen to them, makes you think you're in a much better situation.
Blinsighted tackled the effect of trauma. The differences in the survivor's willingness to live after going through hell, and how it can alter the direction of their life.
Notice also the subtlety of how she portrayed the stages of grieving in the life of Lena.
And the horror of how one perceives something. I cannot fcking get it to my head how someone could interpret the bible that way. Goes to show how differently the mind really works in each of us. Give just a small twisted belief to a psycho and they'll worship living it that way for the rest of their life.
and the fact that they live amongst us, and walk among us is crazy. Makes one paranoid, how well do you know a person? Even when you seem like you know them, you don't.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Body horror, Suicide, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Kidnapping, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Violence, Medical content, Cursing, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Excrement, Religious bigotry, and Stalking
boozer's review
dark
tense
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.5
Loooooved the writing and the story and will definitely pick up the second one asap but I can’t give it a higher rating since I unfortunately thought it was very predictable who the killer was. Still very much enjoyed the book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Kidnapping, Sexual violence, Suicide, Murder, Sexual assault, Rape, Death, Body horror, Violence, and Blood
mxcopmy's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
2,5-3 And spoilers ahead!
I must honestly confess that I sometimes have slightly too high expectations when I dive into Slaughter's books. This is probably because I have been slogging through the Will Trent series like crazy since I was 14-15. I've always loved them, even the most recent ones I've read always struck a chord. Only with this one, I really feel like there are very big chunks missing which meant I didn't have the saturated feeling I normally always have after reading a KS.
The most righteous excuse I can perhaps bring to this is because this was her very first book she has written. The biggest reason why I always keep returning to a book of hers is because of her magically complex way of setting stories. Also to get back to those nice nostalgic feelings whenever I just see Will or Sara's name. That alone makes me perk up. The complex storyline was completely missing here, in my opinion. For instance, it is largely just 1 storyline where normally in all her other books, she can certainly relate 2-3 storylines. There were also very sloppy pieces of writing at times, making for a huge lack of comprehensiveness. To focus a bit more on this, I would like to bring up an example for this (!SPOILER ALLERT FOR THE NEXT FOUR SINS!): there is one particular section where Peet's employee (namely Will) gets a brick thrown through his window with "just watch out n*****" causing Jeffrey to determine to spend a night at Will's house. In this night, Jeffrey is shot through the leg from the window. This part of the story has just been described, but just not elaborated on. So there is no mention anywhere of what or who shot Jeffrey in the leg. Nor was it linked to the criminal acts. To go into another bit of sloppiness, I found that the part where Sara confesses to having been raped in the past was very unrealistic. How could Sara only realise so late that actually her case from 12 years ago had been committed in a similar way to the cases that had happened now? It was just really too short-lived.... and as icing on the cake, it's still not clear to me what the perpetrator's Christian motive was. Or well, anyway why he linked the Bible to his actions so often here? Anyways, so there were a lot of things that I didn't like, but that doesn't take away from the fact that I couldn't put the book down and, as a result, finished it in 48 hours. I had my eye on the person in question early in the story, but KS had then put me on the wrong track somewhere in the half of the book (you got me there, lol). And even when it was revealed that he was the one who had done it I was still full of adrenaline! I also loved the fact that we, as readers, figured out who it was slightly in advance before Sara and Jeffrey could come to that fact. This makes you go over your toll a bit more! Conclusion: so it was still a surprise this late in the book! Crazy cool!
I had decided to delve into the Grand County series after finding Sara such an incredibly strong and inspiring character in the Will Trent series books. I'm definitely going to continue this series because I'm doing it mainly for Sara anyway (and because I have more positive experiences with Slaughter's reading than negative ones anyway ;) ).
By the way, can these old covers be used again for her books? At least these REALLY give you the sense of suspicion and creepiness to a thriller. I love it! So I really read the book constantly with the cover in the back of my mind because it settled a bit more darkly!
I must honestly confess that I sometimes have slightly too high expectations when I dive into Slaughter's books. This is probably because I have been slogging through the Will Trent series like crazy since I was 14-15. I've always loved them, even the most recent ones I've read always struck a chord. Only with this one, I really feel like there are very big chunks missing which meant I didn't have the saturated feeling I normally always have after reading a KS.
The most righteous excuse I can perhaps bring to this is because this was her very first book she has written. The biggest reason why I always keep returning to a book of hers is because of her magically complex way of setting stories. Also to get back to those nice nostalgic feelings whenever I just see Will or Sara's name. That alone makes me perk up. The complex storyline was completely missing here, in my opinion. For instance, it is largely just 1 storyline where normally in all her other books, she can certainly relate 2-3 storylines. There were also very sloppy pieces of writing at times, making for a huge lack of comprehensiveness. To focus a bit more on this, I would like to bring up an example for this (!SPOILER ALLERT FOR THE NEXT FOUR SINS!): there is one particular section where Peet's employee (namely Will) gets a brick thrown through his window with "just watch out n*****" causing Jeffrey to determine to spend a night at Will's house. In this night, Jeffrey is shot through the leg from the window. This part of the story has just been described, but just not elaborated on. So there is no mention anywhere of what or who shot Jeffrey in the leg. Nor was it linked to the criminal acts. To go into another bit of sloppiness, I found that the part where Sara confesses to having been raped in the past was very unrealistic. How could Sara only realise so late that actually her case from 12 years ago had been committed in a similar way to the cases that had happened now? It was just really too short-lived.... and as icing on the cake, it's still not clear to me what the perpetrator's Christian motive was. Or well, anyway why he linked the Bible to his actions so often here? Anyways, so there were a lot of things that I didn't like, but that doesn't take away from the fact that I couldn't put the book down and, as a result, finished it in 48 hours. I had my eye on the person in question early in the story, but KS had then put me on the wrong track somewhere in the half of the book (you got me there, lol). And even when it was revealed that he was the one who had done it I was still full of adrenaline! I also loved the fact that we, as readers, figured out who it was slightly in advance before Sara and Jeffrey could come to that fact. This makes you go over your toll a bit more! Conclusion: so it was still a surprise this late in the book! Crazy cool!
I had decided to delve into the Grand County series after finding Sara such an incredibly strong and inspiring character in the Will Trent series books. I'm definitely going to continue this series because I'm doing it mainly for Sara anyway (and because I have more positive experiences with Slaughter's reading than negative ones anyway ;) ).
By the way, can these old covers be used again for her books? At least these REALLY give you the sense of suspicion and creepiness to a thriller. I love it! So I really read the book constantly with the cover in the back of my mind because it settled a bit more darkly!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Body horror, Medical content, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Suicide, and Violence
notartgarfunkel's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Murder, Death, Body horror, Rape, and Violence
Moderate: Addiction, Grief, Gun violence, Sexual content, Stalking, and Drug abuse
martha662's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Gore, Rape, Violence, Death, Blood, Body horror, Sexual assault, Medical trauma, and Suicide
This book starts out slow and picks up speed. I got about halfway through the book and couldn't put it down. The book does get graphic at times. I really enjoyed Jeffrey and Sara and their relationship. I had a hard time liking Lena. I would recommend it to someone who enjoys murder mysteries and thrillers.shanthigni's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Sexual content, Body horror, Death, Excrement, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Rape, Gore, and Murder
Minor: Racial slurs, Hate crime, and Incest