MacsLady
CSI Level Two
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3
Broken by Karin Slaughter. This book brings together characters from Slaughter's Grant County series - cop Lena Adams and former coroner Sara Linton, and her Atlanta series - detective Will Trent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Sara returns to her hometown of Heartsdale, after a long absence
and finds herself involved in the investigation of the murder of a young woman whose body was dragged from a nearby lake. The main suspect, a teenage boy with a quite severe mental disability was arrested and Sara suspects Lena Adams of coercing him into a confession. She also holds Lena responsible for the young man's suicide in jail. Sara despises Lena
and is determined to take her down. So she calls in the GBI and Will Trent to investigate. Meanwhile, Lena has her own problems, she longs to escape from the deeply corrupt Grant County police force, but previous fuck ups and mistakes she has made in both her professional and personal life cause problems for her. She also has her suspicions about the true guilt of the dead suspect, and guilt over her responsibility in his suicide.
Will Trent, too, has his own problems to deal with, the close-mouthed hostility of a small town, his attraction to Sarah, his dyslexia and his extremely tough childhod.
As with all of Slaughter's books, the characters, plot and setting are all brilliant. Lots of darkness and rain and simmering tensions etc.
Also reading The Black Tower by P.D. James. Recovering from a dangerous illness, Commander Adam Dalgliesh receives a letter from an old friend who is now a chaplain at a home for the disabled, Toynton Grange. When he arrives, the priest is dead and one of the patients has (apparantly) killed himself. As Dalgliesh reluctantly investigates further, he begins to suspect that the Grange, is not quite the caring community it seems, and it's inhabitants, the disabled patients, the assorted carers, the head of the home etc, are not what they seem.
Very good so far. What I like best is the portrayal of the disabled patients. They're not portrayed as saints, nor as victims of a cruel society, just as people who are as capable of the same things as anyone else, and that includes petty viciousness, outright malice, and possibly even murder. The setting - on a clifftop on the Dorset coast, in a Gothic-y house inhabited by a group of weirdos (patients and carers alike are all odd, and it has nothing to do with whether they happen to be in a wheelchair or not, and they all seem to have something to hide), is fantastic too, there's a real sense of creeping menace.
I also love the character of Dalgliesh.
Broken by Karin Slaughter. This book brings together characters from Slaughter's Grant County series - cop Lena Adams and former coroner Sara Linton, and her Atlanta series - detective Will Trent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Sara returns to her hometown of Heartsdale, after a long absence
following the murder of her police chief husband, Jeffrey, in Heartsdale four years previously
she blames her for Jeffrey's death
Will Trent, too, has his own problems to deal with, the close-mouthed hostility of a small town, his attraction to Sarah, his dyslexia and his extremely tough childhod.
As with all of Slaughter's books, the characters, plot and setting are all brilliant. Lots of darkness and rain and simmering tensions etc.
Also reading The Black Tower by P.D. James. Recovering from a dangerous illness, Commander Adam Dalgliesh receives a letter from an old friend who is now a chaplain at a home for the disabled, Toynton Grange. When he arrives, the priest is dead and one of the patients has (apparantly) killed himself. As Dalgliesh reluctantly investigates further, he begins to suspect that the Grange, is not quite the caring community it seems, and it's inhabitants, the disabled patients, the assorted carers, the head of the home etc, are not what they seem.
Very good so far. What I like best is the portrayal of the disabled patients. They're not portrayed as saints, nor as victims of a cruel society, just as people who are as capable of the same things as anyone else, and that includes petty viciousness, outright malice, and possibly even murder. The setting - on a clifftop on the Dorset coast, in a Gothic-y house inhabited by a group of weirdos (patients and carers alike are all odd, and it has nothing to do with whether they happen to be in a wheelchair or not, and they all seem to have something to hide), is fantastic too, there's a real sense of creeping menace.
I also love the character of Dalgliesh.
