The Kept Woman
The Will Trent Series #10
(including 2 novellas)
Karin Slaughter
William Morrow, September 2016
ISBN 978-0-06-243021-2
Hardcover
From the publisher—
With the discovery of a murder at an abandoned construction site, Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is brought in on a case that becomes much more dangerous when the dead man is identified as an ex-cop.
Studying the body, Sara Linton—the GBI’s newest medical examiner and Will’s lover—realizes that the extensive blood loss didn’t belong to the corpse. Sure enough, bloody footprints leading away from the scene indicate there is another victim—a woman—who has vanished . . . and who will die soon if she isn’t found.
Will is already compromised, because the site belongs to the city’s most popular citizen: a wealthy, powerful, and politically connected athlete protected by the world’s most expensive lawyers—a man who’s already gotten away with rape, despite Will’s exhaustive efforts to put him away.
But the worst is yet to come. Evidence soon links Will’s troubled past to the case . . . and the consequences will tear through his life with the force of a tornado, wreaking havoc for Will and everyone around him, including his colleagues, family, friends—and even the suspects he pursues.
If you ask me—and you know you want to ;-)—there is no better thriller author writing today than Karin Slaughter. When I first encountered her work years ago, I was completely blown away and she has never once let me down. The first few pages of The Kept Woman assured me that Ms. Slaughter is in fine form once again.
Those first paragraphs (a prologue of only three pages) set the tone with two women clearly in danger, not only of dying but of further attack, and I was riveted within seconds. That’s one of the author’s real strengths, that she can pull the reader in with a vengeance almost immediately and, for me, I know I’m about to get a great story full of suspense. It doesn’t hurt that I also adore the two protagonists, Will Trent and Sara Linton, and I appreciate that their personal story always gets advanced in some way without the author focusing too much on their relationship.
When Will is called in to investigate the death of a former cop, he’s already a bit hampered by an adversarial connection with the owner of the property, one who enjoys a certain amount of political protection, but that’s just the tip of a very nasty iceberg and Will himself will be caught up beyond his control. More than ever before, his past and present will collide and leave his life and emotional stability in turmoil.
I have to restrain myself from saying much about the plot because there’s so much going on that it would be all too easy to fall into the spoiler trap. Suffice it to say the police work aided by forensics drive the reader inexorably through one twist after another on the way to getting to the truth. A word of warning, though….if violence and gruesome crime scenes are really not your cup of tea, you probably won’t want to read this (but you’ll be missing out on a stellar crime fiction series).
And, so, she’s done it again, much to my delight. Ms. Slaughter’s ability to weave a story full of tension and surprise with characters who show both strength and vulnerability (especially female characters) never seems to fade, even a little, and I’m a happy fan once again.
Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, September 2016.
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Purchase Links:
HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound
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About the Author
Karin Slaughter is the #1 internationally bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including the Will Trent and Grant County series and the instant New York Times bestselling standalones, Cop Town and Pretty Girls. There are more than 35 million copies of her books in print around the world.
Find out more about Karin at her website and connect with her on Facebook.
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Follow the tour:
Tuesday, September 20th: Kahakai Kitchen
Wednesday, September 21st: The Book Bag
Thursday, September 22nd: Buried Under Books
Friday, September 23rd: Books and Bindings
Monday, September 26th: Read-Love-Blog
Tuesday, September 27th: No More Grumpy Bookseller
Wednesday, September 28th: A Chick Who Reads
Thursday, September 29th: Kritters Ramblings
Monday, October 3rd: A Bookworm’s World
Wednesday, October 5th: Vox Libris
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Buried Under Books 