1/03/2018

The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter

I AM FLASHED! How Will Trent is solving his cases, how he´s doing his job, notices what others don´t – unbelievable. It was haunting and very bloody watching him in his first case and since then I am absolutely thrilled when it comes to this figure and his working style. What a man! I am reading this series, since a couple of years. And thought long about publishing this review on Inkvotary, since I usually don´t like to start a series in the middle. Or in this case, with the current last part of it. But this review was already written months ago and it is only due to my everlasting time-problem that it took me that long to get it edited and on the blog.

The Kept Woman*

by Karin Slaughter
Will Trent Series #8

Georgia Series #6
Publisher Harper Collins on September 20, 2016
Genre Thriller
Pages 480
Format Hardcover
Source Publisher

Goodreads

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With the discovery of a murder at an abandoned construction site, Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is brought in on a case that becomes much more dangerous when the dead man is identified as an ex-cop. Studying the body, Sara Linton – the GBI´s newest medical examiner and Will´s lover – realizes that the extensive blood loss didn´t belong to the corpse. Sure enough, bloody footprints leading away from the scene indicate there is another victim – a woman – who has vanished … and who will die soon if she isn´t found. Will is already compromised, because the site belongs to the city´s most popular citizen: a wealthy, powerful and politically connected athlete protected by the world´s most expensive lawyers – a man who´s already gotten away with rape, despite Will´s exhaustive efforts to put him away. But the worst is yet to come. Evidence soon links Will´s troubled past to the case … and the consequences will tear through his life with the force of a tornado, wreaking havoc for Will and everyone around him, including his colleagues, family, friends – and even the suspects he pursues.

Story

In a warehouse, the body of an ex-cop is found. Sara Linton already recognizes during the crime scene inspection that the dead did not die as a result of violence. Her statement does not appeal to Amanda, the head of the murder case. And Will does not really agree with the fact that Sara is doing her job at the crime scene. Not if everything indicates that one of the participants is his still-wife Angie. Her great power over him is something he does not realize or wants. But Sara does a brilliant job and sees no point in changing the way how she does her work.

Style

The language is quite but blunt and Karin Slaughter ones again can prove that even the slightest detail of a case isn´t worthless. Not when you have Will Trent working on it. From the very first line, the reader is thrown into the plot, is confronted with a bloody and cruel scenery and sees a protagonist who isn´t like any other. What I like about this series or Will Trent is the fact, that he isn´t a character who has nothing to offer but his handsome figure and face. Will has edges, is in some ways like a little child and then there are moments where he couldn´t be manlier.

Domestic violence is as much a topic as adoption and drug abuse. The combination of them is deadly for some characters, for others the pure lifesaver. All this is portrayed in an almost calm way with deceptive gentleness. In other words, pure Karin Slaughter.

Characters

With Will, the author has created a dyslexic figure who shows in an impressive way what it means to live with it in a “normal” society. The system Will uses to be able to do his job without the others noticing that he isn´t like them is one of a kind. Many times, I thought that he sees way more as all the others because he has a different perspective to watch. He thinks in a different way and, yet he is as insecure when it comes to feelings and Sara as you can imagine. 

Annie is a real bitch. She knows about the power she has over Will; is jealous to the moon that he wants Sara and is living a dream with her he never could with Annie, and helpless when it comes to express her own feelings for Will and to understand that what they both share got nothing to do with real love.  

Conclusion

An insanely good thriller that scores with its psychological sophistication and characters of the extra class. If you´re not familiar with Karin Slaughter and her work, this is the perfect way to change that. But to get a rounder picture I suggest you start with her thriller Triptych first. For this, I´d say: Here absolute reading pleasure is guaranteed.

Happy reading

*I read the German edition Blutige Fesseln by Harper Collins, October 31, 2016.

Karin Slaughter

Karin Slaughter, born 1971, is from Atlanta, Georgia. In 2003 her debut novel Belladonna was published and went straight to the top of the international bestselling list and catapulted her onto the Thriller-Olympus. She is the #1 internationally bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including the Will Trent and Grant County series and the instant New York Times bestselling standalones, Cop Town and Pretty Girls. There are more than 35 million copies of her books in print around the world.

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