Broken: A Novel of Suspense

I got recently got hooked on Karin Slaughter books. This book is great. Reminds me of Patricia Cornwell.

Hope she comes up with a follow up on this book SOON!!! Love where the story line is going with Will and Sara. Write fast Ms. Slaughter!

Having read Karin slaughter's books before and thoroughly enjoying them, "Broken" was even better! Allison Spooner stayed at college during the holidays. She was having a rough time from a room that barely heated, a car that smoked, a boyfriend that she felt had left her, and to top it all off the weather in south Georgia was cold, so she disgustedly took a walk around Lake Grant near the college. She really didn't think of anything else but her "crappy" life as she plodded through the mud, tripped over the tree roots and fallen branches, sometimes falling down. One time when she fell she was pushed into the water and held down as she was brought back to reality. Someone was trying to kill her and they succeeded. At 3:00 in the morning Lena Adams phone awake her. She knew it couldn't be anything good at that hour. It wasn't! She traveled in the rainy, misty, foggy weather to the site where the lake was being searched for a body. When she arrived all the various agencies were there to assist in all the work created by a missing, then found, body chained to two concrete blocks in the lake. What they thought was a suicide now was a murder. The small town inexperienced police force led by interim chief Frank Wallace had been fractured with the death of their police chief, Jeffrey Tolliver, several years previous and seemed to work against each other instead of cooperating. Everything Jeffrey had set up and had running smooth became a Keystone Cops force. Lena got along fairly well with Frank. Sara Linton now lived in the Atlanta area. She and Jeffrey had been as one and she had been lost without him. She had taken a job in Grant County as a part time coroner while buying out the local clinic. When she lost Jeffery, she left the area with a bad taste in her mouth towards the entire area, especially officer Lena Adams, who she blamed for Jeffery's death. Now Sara had come back to Grant County to visit her family for four days. It was hard seeing all her connections with Jeffrey. Allison Spooner's boyfriend, Tommy, had been arrested for her murder, having confessed he had killed her while under the tough interrogation he was put through. Then when this slow-thinking, mild acting, boyfriend was found dead from suicide in his cell, the entire police force looked as though they didn't know where to turn. Sara called the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Special Agent Will Trent came to get to the root of the problems in Grant County. With Will and Sara, Sara unofficially, working on the case, the local police balked at almost every move. Will worked through most of the walls that were set up to keep him out of the case but Will was too smart for them. Despite Lena trying to stay away from Will and his investigation, he forced her to work with him. Will and Sara were feeling a bit of something for each other but they didn't want the case to be swayed by their personal lives so they didn't show too much affection around others

What a great feeling it is to discover another great author! This is the first book that I have read by Karin Slaughter, but certainly not my last! I had a tough time putting this book down. An outstanding story teller, Karin Slaughter knows how to keep a reader spellbound and on the edge of his seat frantically turning pages. The story begins with Georgia Grant Tech College Student Allison Spooner's surprising murder at a lake in Heartland as she contemplates suicide mourning her breakup with her boyfriend Jason Howell. Likeable, mentally disabled Tommy Braham is the prime suspect after he runs from what is believed to be the scene of the murder and accidentally stabs police detective Brad Stevens in the stomach with a letter opener. His confession and subsequent suicide seals the deal for arresting officer Senior Detective Lena Adams. Lena, as policewoman thought to be overzealous, having a problem with following proper police protocol and a propensity of bending the truth is protected by her alcoholic Acting Chief of Police Frank Wallace who has dark secrets and skeletons in his own closet. Coming home from Alabama for Thanksgiving, former County Coroner and Hartsdale Children's Clinic Director Dr. Sara Linton, wife of Jeffery Tolliver, murdered former Grant County Police Chief blames Lena for his death and becomes involved in the case with an agenda to make Lena pay for her transgressions. Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Will Trent is called to investigate the murder following, Acting Chief of Police Frank Wallace and Senior Detective Lena Adam's apparent dubious and obstructive behavior in the case. With the murder of Allison Spooner's boy friend Jason Howell after Tommy's death, his involvement in the murder is dispelled. Slaughter keeps the reader involved as the story evolves and the killer's motive comes to light while putting main characters lives in jeopardy. I enjoyed this thriller from beginning to end and can hardly wait to read more from this excellent writer and fabulous story teller.

Karin Slaughter brings together some of her most memorable characters in "Broken," her latest thriller. Twenty-one year old Allison Spooner is at the end of her rope. She is short of money, her boyfriend has disappointed her, and her rusted-out hulk of a car is on its last legs. She is struggling to keep up with her college classes at Georgia's Grant Tech while earning a pittance as a waitress in a diner. Sadly, her dream of escaping her tedious life is shattered when an unknown assailant attacks and kills her. Lena Adams, the senior detective on call, is summoned to the scene. At first, it appears that Spooner may have killed herself, but new evidence points to murder. Lena's boss, interim chief of police Frank Wallace, is not much help. He has been drinking heavily, and his mind is clearly elsewhere. When Wallace, Adams, and Detective Brad Stephens travel to the address where the victim allegedly lived, they discover a possible suspect. What follows is a series of blunders that lead to disaster both for the person taken into custody and the cops who arrest him. To make matters more complicated, Dr. Sara Linton, who is a pediatrician, medical examiner, and the widow of the former police chief, Jeffrey Tolliver, is visiting her family for Thanksgiving. Sara despises Lena, whom she blames for her late husband's death, and would prefer never to lay eyes on the detective ever again. She acidly tell someone that Lena is "never held accountable for anything. She always manages to slither back under her rock." When Special Agent Will Trent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is assigned to look into Allison Spooner's death, he teams up with Sara, whose expertise proves to be invaluable. "Broken" is an exciting, suspenseful, and poignant tale that shows how people sow the seeds of their own destruction. They withhold vital information, try to cover up their mistakes, and shift blame to others. What results is a needless waste of lives and resources. Sara and Will both have inner demons to contend with, but as they get to know one another, they open up a bit and form a tenuous connection. Slaughter is a terrific storyteller. The plot is well-constructed and involving, her dialogue is realistic, and the author captures the feeling of life in a small Georgia town where people know everyone else's business and cling tightly to their prejudices and pettiness. The characters are generally well-delineated: Dr. Sara Linton is still in mourning for her husband, although he has been gone for four years; Lena Adams has committed her share of screw-ups, but has always been too stubborn to admit her culpability; Will Grant is a good-hearted man and an excellent detective but he is hiding a secret that, if revealed, may affect his future in the Bureau; Frank Wallace, after thirty-five years on the force, is an alcoholic who no longer has what it takes to function on the job. This is a fast-moving story that falters a bit during the fina

Four years ago, in Heartsdale, Grant County's popular police chief Tolliver was murdered; the case remains unsolved. His widow Dr. Sara Linton was the county coroner and ran a children's clinic, but left after her spouse died. She is back in town visiting her family on Thanksgiving yet is still thirsting for her husband's homicide to be resolved although she is positive that Officer Lena Adams is at the center of her husband's homicide. At the same time, Special Agent Will Trent is also in Grant County to investigate a questionable death oif a prisoner. Not surprising, he finds the local police officers circling the wagons protecting each other form the intruder. Will concludes that Police Officer Lena Adams is concealing something, but is not sure what or why. As he struggles with the uncooperative cops, he is taken aback when Dr. Linton asks him to look into her husband's murder, a cold case. Trent is being pulled by two women in opposite directions of the Blue Line that keeps him outside in spite of being law enforcement too. This is an intriguing Grant County thriller (see Faithless, Undone and Blindsided) as Will instead of Sara holds the story line together with two females yanking him in opposite directions. The insightful look at the learning disorder agraphia augments the taut tale as it showcases how an individual learns to conceal a problem with some form of over compensation. In a starring role, Will brings freshness to the plot as he investigates two deaths that cast the Grants County Police Office in a shroud of darkness. Harriet Klausner