Broken

Starred review from May 24, 2010
Slaughter brings her Grant County and Atlanta characters together for a second time (after Undone) in this superb thriller. When Dr. Sara Linton returns home to Grant County, Ga., for Thanksgiving, she hopes to steer clear of the police, especially Det. Lena Adams, whom she blames for the murder of her husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver. Yet when college student Allison Spooner is found dead in a lake and a local boy, Tommy Braham, is arrested for the murder, Sara reluctantly agrees to consult. The investigation soon spirals out of control after Tommy dies in custody. When Sara calls in Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent Will Trent from Atlanta to take over the case, the local police greet Will's arrival with suspicion. Will must weigh Sara's personal vendetta against Detective Adams with the facts of the case, which grow more confusing the deeper he digs into the small county's secrets. Slaughter keeps the emotional tension high throughout.

August 30, 2010
Natalie Ross brings an earnest performance to her reading of Slaughter’s latest thriller, a sequel to 2009’s Undone, a complex tale of murder and lies. Dr. Sara Linton reluctantly returns to Grant County, Ga., where her chief of police husband was killed, to spend Thanksgiving with her family. The last thing she wants is to become involved in the apparent murder of a young college student, but with the suicide of the prime suspect, the simple-minded Tommy Braham, Sara is soon deep into an investigation that isn’t only about murder, but coverups and corruption in the police department as well. With the help of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s special agent Will Trent, Sara discovers a tangled web of deception and danger. Slaughter has built an superbly plotted story where nothing is as simple as it appears. Ross delivers the prose smoothly, nicely differentiating between the characters. Some decisions in the sound editing tend to be more distracting to the story than effective, but these are few and easily dismissed. A Delacorte hardcover (Reviews, May 24).