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A review by mrsbooknerd
Criminal by Karin Slaughter
2.0
If I had picked this up as a casual reader who hadn't read any of the others in the series then I'd have stopped reading less than quarter of the way in.
The novel was split into two time frames, 1975 which was an original investigation ran by Amanda Wagner and Evelyn Mitchell, and the present day with Will Trent, Sara, Faith, Amanda etc etc
The sections based on the present day were quite good with the continuing relationship between Will and Sara developing from the previous book, Fallen. I felt that these sections were really underdeveloped in that we were just told that it was Will's father behind the murder, there was no subtlety or anything, just BOOM, a murder and then 'Oh it must be Will's dad...'. Also, what began to to annoy me was that everyone is always keeping secrets from everyone else. You can keep the identity of the killer hidden from the reader without having to keep your characters in the dark too. If I was Will Trent I'd have MAJOR issues from all my friends and colleagues constantly lying to me...
In contrast there was a lot of time spent on 1975 where the original murders were committed and Will's father was arrested by Amanda and Evelyn initially. In these sections I felt that there wasn't enough progression, Slaughter spent too much time telling me about the segregation of Black and White officers and Male and Female officers and not enough about the murders. Evelyn and Amanda spent too much time wondering about connections and suspects when I felt that the pages could have had them actually doing something. Considering 1975's events made up the majority of the book and paved the way for present day revelations it just didn't really go anywhere.
I think that if I wasn't a little bit in love with Will Trent then I wouldn't have finished the book at all, though I did like that it gave us a real insight into his life rather than the hints that Slaughter has given through the series this far.
The novel was split into two time frames, 1975 which was an original investigation ran by Amanda Wagner and Evelyn Mitchell, and the present day with Will Trent, Sara, Faith, Amanda etc etc
The sections based on the present day were quite good with the continuing relationship between Will and Sara developing from the previous book, Fallen. I felt that these sections were really underdeveloped in that we were just told that it was Will's father behind the murder, there was no subtlety or anything, just BOOM, a murder and then 'Oh it must be Will's dad...'. Also, what began to to annoy me was that everyone is always keeping secrets from everyone else. You can keep the identity of the killer hidden from the reader without having to keep your characters in the dark too. If I was Will Trent I'd have MAJOR issues from all my friends and colleagues constantly lying to me...
In contrast there was a lot of time spent on 1975 where the original murders were committed and Will's father was arrested by Amanda and Evelyn initially. In these sections I felt that there wasn't enough progression, Slaughter spent too much time telling me about the segregation of Black and White officers and Male and Female officers and not enough about the murders. Evelyn and Amanda spent too much time wondering about connections and suspects when I felt that the pages could have had them actually doing something. Considering 1975's events made up the majority of the book and paved the way for present day revelations it just didn't really go anywhere.
I think that if I wasn't a little bit in love with Will Trent then I wouldn't have finished the book at all, though I did like that it gave us a real insight into his life rather than the hints that Slaughter has given through the series this far.