Amazon.com
When police chief Jeffrey Tolliver responds to a disturbance at a local skating rink, the last thing he expects is to have to shoot a 13-year-old girl who's holding a gun on a fellow student. Then Jenny Deaver's autopsy reveals two stunning facts: she did not bear the murdered newborn discovered in the rink's restroom, and she had recently been genitally mutilated. With his ex-wife, pediatrician Sara Linton, Jeffrey uncovers a child sex and pornography ring involving Jenny, her classmates, and their mothers--a horrific enterprise that culminated in the killing that Tolliver will never be able to forget. This taut, chilling thriller showcases Karin Slaughter's skill at plotting, pace, and narrative, and will linger in the reader's mind long after the stunning denouement. This is a terrific sequel to her debut, Blindsighted, with two protagonists whose complex relationship will no doubt be a featured subplot in her next offering. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
Aptly named novelist Slaughter (Blindsighted) brings back her horribly scarred cast of Grant County, Ga., cops and coroners for more murder, mayhem and horrific sexual violence. Pathologist Sara Linton, who has been dating her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, is witness to Tolliver's fatal shooting of a teenage girl when the girl threatens to shoot a 16-year-old boy in a standoff outside the local skating rink. A search of the rink turns up a dismembered fetus in a toilet; Sara's postmortem reveals the girl had a long history of abuse most gruesomely, her vagina is sewn shut. Working the case alongside Jeffrey is Det. Lena Adams, herself the victim of a recent abduction and rape, who is also trying, with difficulty, to come to terms with the death of her gay sister. Questioning Mark, the boy who was almost shot, Lena gradually uncovers a true horror show of pedophilia, incest and kiddie porn, an inverted world where parents rape their children before peddling them to strangers for money and blackmail. Slaughter adheres to the traditional mystery format, but turns up the shock factor tenfold, demonstrating that the deepest depravity can be business as usual in small towns as well as big cities. The undertone of violence is pervasive, even at quiet moments ("Lena was able to pull her hand away, but not before she felt Grace's thumb brush across the scar.... The touch was tender, almost sexual, and Lena could see the charge Grace got out of it"), amplifying Slaughter's equation of intimacy with menace and placing her squarely in the ranks of Cornwell and Reichs. (Sept.) Forecast: Slaughter's much-praised first novel, Blindsighted, put her on the thriller map. Kisscut, a featured alternate selection of the Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, Mystery Guild and BOMC, could make her a bestseller. 10-city author tour. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Slaughter's second novel picks right up where her acclaimed debut, Blindsighted, left off-with Grant County, GA, pediatrician/coroner Sara Linton fighting crime with Jeffrey Tolliver, her ex-husband and the chief of police. It all starts one hot night in the parking lot of a skating rink: teenager Jenny Weaver is threatening to shoot Mark Patterson, but before she can pull the trigger, Jeffrey is forced to kill her. Was Jenny the mother of the 23-week-old fetus that Sara finds in the skating rink bathroom? Was Mark the father? Had he jilted Jenny, earning her wrath? Sara's autopsy answers some of these questions; Jenny was most certainly not the mother, as she had been a victim of genital mutilation and had her vagina sewn shut. This first disturbing discovery leads to many others, and before the week is out many dark secrets involving child pornography, pedophilia, and incest are exposed. With the same graphic detail found in her first novel and in those by Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs, Slaughter has again written a fast-paced thriller for those not faint of heart. Recommended for most public library thriller collections.Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, INCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
Sara Linton, local doctor and coroner, and Jeffrey Tolliver, local sheriff, team up to investigate the murder of a victim who practiced self-mutilation. The trail leads them to a kidnapping, child pornography, and incest. Horrific crimes and graphic descriptions of sexual acts fill this mystery. Although Patricia Kalember uses a credible Southern accent, all the characters sound the same. Kalember reads the narration and dialogue in a straightforward manner, distancing herself emotionally from the subject matter. This effect buffers the listener from the descriptions but also downplays the tension of the plot. Not for the faint of heart. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
This is Slaughter's harrowing follow-up to her brutally graphic best-seller Blindsighted [BKL Ag 01], again featuring pediatrician Sara Linton; her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver; and detective Lena Adams. Jeffrey is struggling emotionally in the aftermath of a shooting. Teenager Jenny Weaver in effect committed suicide by forcing Jeffrey to shoot her in a standoff, and he is desperate to uncover the motive behind her rash actions. Sara, who was Jenny's doctor and also doubles as the town coroner, must now perform the autopsy, and what she discovers shocks the law-enforcement team: Jenny had undergone a very crude form of female castration. Lena, who is wrestling with her own dark side and seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and Jeffrey, unable to sleep and haunted by images of shooting Jenny, must conduct the investigation, which leads them to a lucrative child pornography ring. In a tension-filled narrative with plenty of plot twists, Slaughter, borrowing a page from Andrew Vachss and his Burke books, portrays the sinister world of child sexual abuse and the seemingly nondescript ringleaders who profit from it This is just the ticket for readers who like their crime fiction on the dark side. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Saturday night dates at the skating rink have been a tradition in the small southern town of Heartsdale for as long as anyone can remember, but when a teenage quarrel explodes into a deadly shoot-out, Sara Linton -- the town's pediatrician and medical examiner -- finds herself entangled in a terrible tragedy.
What seemed at first to be a horrific but individual catastrophe proves to have wider implications. The autopsy reveals evidence of long-term abuse, of ritualistic self -mutilation, but when Sara and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver start to investigate, they are frustrated at every turn.
The children surrounding the victim close ranks. The families turn their backs. Then a young girl is abducted, and it becomes clear that the first death is linked to an even more brutal crime, one far more shocking than anyone could have imagined. Meanwhile, detective Lena Adams, still recovering from her sister's death and her own brutal attack, finds herself drawn to a young man who might hold the answers. But unless Lena, Sara, and Jeffrey can uncover the deadly secrets the children hide, it's going to happen again...
Download Description
When a teen brawl turns deadly in the small southern town of Heartsdale, pediatrician Sara Linton and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver investigate; but the kids close ranks, and the families won't talk. Until it happens again..Saturday night dates at the skating rink have been a tradition in the small southern town of Heartsdale for as long as anyone can remember, but when a teenage quarrel explodes into a deadly shoot-out, Sara Linton -- the town's pediatrician and medical examiner -- finds herself entangled in a terrible tragedy. What seemed at first to be a horrific but individual catastrophe proves to have wider implications. The autopsy reveals evidence of long-term abuse, of ritualistic self -mutilation, but when Sara and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver start to investigate, they are frustrated at every turn. The children surrounding the victim close ranks. The families turn their backs. Then a young girl is abducted, and it becomes clear that the first death is linked to an even more brutal crime, one far more shocking than anyone could have imagined. Meanwhile, detective Lena Adams, still recovering from her sister's death and her own brutal attack, finds herself drawn to a young man who might hold the answers. But unless Lena, Sara, and Jeffrey can uncover the deadly secrets the children hide, it's going to happen again...
Home
