Trying out some more Karin Slaughter I thought I should do this methodically and read them in publication order.
This one is now more than 20 years old but still holds up fairly well. We meet Sara, paediatrician and coroner and her ex Jeffrey, Chief of Police of Grant County in Georgia. A series of very nasty rapes and assaults seems to hint at something in Sara’s past, which is gradually revealed to us as Sara and Jeffrey work to identify the killer.
There’s a slightly unlikely coincidence that happened in Sara’s past which is the ultimate cause of the current crimes, but if you accept that then the story moves along quite well and the rest is well constructed. I particularly liked that once the antagonist is revealed things are brought to a fairly quick conclusion – we are not left hanging or wading through a drawn out ending.
There was a lot of very graphic description of the crimes which I didn’t really like reading; it made me quite uncomfortable. I suspect the author was trying to make a mark with her first novel but this was a bit much in places.
Character development was mostly through the reveal of backstory rather than their actions and interactions but this is (and clearly was always intended to be) a series so I would hope to see this improve as we move along.
Overall, not a great work, a bit too gruesome but with the seeds of her later (and arguably better) work clearly visible here. I will continue with the series.