Criminal

May 28, 2012
At the outset of Slaughter’s tense fourth thriller to combine characters from her two crime series (after 2011’s Fallen), life is running smoothly for agent Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation as he eases into a new relationship with Dr. Sara Linton, until the abduction of 19-year-old college student Ashleigh Snyder. When his GBI mentor and boss, Deputy Director Amanda Wagner, specifically tells him to stay away from the case, Will knows something is wrong. Flashback to 1975, when Amanda is a rookie in the Atlanta Police Department, along with Evelyn Mitchell, who later becomes the mother of Faith, Will’s GBI partner. The APD at that time is rife with racism and sexism, but Amanda and Evelyn refuse to abandon the case of several missing prostitutes, despite warnings from other (male) detectives to back off. Slaughter seamlessly shifts between past and present, while her usual attentive eye for character and carefully metered violence is on full display. 6 to 8–city author tour. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Associates.

September 24, 2012
Slaughter’s latest brings to light heretofore-unknown aspects of the lives of Will Trent—an agent at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation—and his boss, deputy director Amanda Wagner. When a young college student goes missing, the circumstances surrounding the disappearance bring back memories of the first case Wagner worked as a young detective in 1975. What is the connection between the two cases and why has Wagner locked Trent out of the investigation? The answers exist, and Kathleen Early does an excellent job of revealing them as she narrates this complex thriller. Early handles the book’s numerous plot twists and shifts in time, pacing, and point of view with aplomb, delivering a compelling and enjoyable listening experience. Confronted with a large cast of characters, Early manages to give each character a distinct voice without falling into caricature or cliché. She is especially effective in her reading of sections of the book set in the 1970s in which Amanda and her partner fight the prejudice of their peers in order to be taken seriously as detectives. A Delacorte hardcover.