Indelible

July 12, 2004
Complex characters with credible relationships underpin this gripping prequel to Slaughter's Blindsighted
(2001). Georgia pediatrician/medical examiner Sara Linton is visiting her ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, when two malevolent strangers, hauntingly familiar to Sara, pull out guns at the station house, where several schoolchildren are on a class trip, and bloody mayhem ensues. The action shifts to the past, when new lovers Sara and Jeffrey detour to his hometown on their way to a beach weekend. A nostalgic tour of Jeffrey's youth turns sinister as buried secrets and injustices slowly come to light. An ugly midnight encounter with Jeffrey's sloshed mother sends Sara outside in time to hear gunshots from the neighboring house of Jeffrey's childhood friend Robert, a cop, who's found bleeding, gun in hand, across the bedroom from his dead victim. Sara is grateful to perform the autopsy, knowing there's more than meets the eye in this puzzling crime scene. The couple's budding romance is put to the test as Sara tries to coax answers from tight-lipped Jeffrey, whose silence and suspicious actions nourish her doubts. Slaughter's tightly disciplined rhythm and occasional sly humor keep readers hooked right up to the end. Agent, Victoria Sanders. (Aug. 1)

Forecast:
Blurbs from Michael Connolly, Harlan Coben and Laura Lippman, plus a four-city author tour, will help build Slaughter's reputation for crime suspense.

May 15, 2004
Hostage taking follows a policeman's slaughter at the station.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2004
This fourth entry in Slaughter's Grant County series features meticulous plotting, a cast full of the walking wounded, and gruesome forensic detail. Small-town pediatrician and part-time coroner Sara Linton stops by the police station to give her ex-husband, Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, her much-practiced speech on why they should not get remarried. Sara still loves Jeffrey, but she continues to suffer from the emotional fallout of his infidelity, which broke up the marriage. But their heart-to-heart is soon interrupted by gunfire as two zombie-eyed, heavily armed 20-year-olds enter the station and open fire. In the tense standoff that follows, Sara flashes back 12 years to when she first met Jeffrey. Frenetically cross-cutting from one time frame to another, the novel intersperses the events that occurred then with the dire circumstances in the present, as multiple police officers lie dead and dying. After a few surprising twists and a head-turning appearance by the series' third lead character, officer Lena Adams, the two story lines converge. What's even more disturbing here than the graphically detailed violence is the creepy atmosphere as Slaughter creates a town, and a world, full of the revenge-seeking victims of child abuse.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)