Undone

Review by Booklist Review

Pediatrician and former Grant County, Georgia, coroner Sara Linton has seen plenty of disturbing sights since she began working in an Atlanta ER. But little could prepare her for the arrival of Anna bruised, beaten, and battered within an inch of her life. In addition to severe surface injuries, Anna's eleventh rib was brutally yanked from her frame. Sara is still reeling from the murder of her cop husband some three years before. As she monitors Anna, she becomes entangled in the pursuit of a beast who snatches up dark-haired beauties and slowly, over time, renders them deaf, dumb, and blind. Georgia State Bureau of Investigation special agents Faith Mitchell and Will Trent lead the investigation, though local law enforcement fights them every step of the way. Agents Mitchell and Trent have problems of their own. Single-mother Faith learns she is pregnant and diabetic; Will grapples with illiteracy. (Skeptical readers may question whether a real-life special agent lacking two of the three Rs could qualify for Agent Trent's job.) As more women are abducted, all parties must set aside personal challenges and stay focused on the case. Best-seller Slaughter (Fractured, 2008, among many others) serves up flawed characters and grisly forensics in this suspenseful series entry.--Block, Allison Copyright 2009 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Slaughter thrusts her series heroine, Dr. Sara Linton, into a serial killer case being investigated by the author's newer series protagonists, detectives Will Trent and Faith Mitchell of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Natalie Ross provides just the right vocal interpretations. For Faith, a tough cookie starting to crumble from the combined pressures of pregnancy and newly diagnosed diabetes, she shifts from harsh-voiced confrontations with balky suspects to softer, self-doubting inner monologues. Trent is given a thoughtful delivery that changes to a self-conscious croak in the presence of the lovely Dr. Linton. For the doctor, still mourning the death of her husband, Ross saves her most subtle characterization, bravery undercut by an unshakable sadness. Though very much a character-driven novel, there's no shortage of plot, and there, too, Ross handles the chills and thrills with appropriate pacing and drama. A Delacorte hardcover (Reviews, June 1). (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

In Slaughter's (www.karinslaughter.com) ninth full-length novel-following the Publishers Weekly best seller Fractured (2008), also available from Brilliance Audio-Will Trent and Faith Mitchell (both of Slaughter's Will Trent series) and Sara Linton (of her "Grant County" series) must work together to find a psychopath who's been abducting women and torturing them in the backwoods of suburban Atlanta. Natalie Ross's (Angel Creek) dramatic reading lends new dimension to this thriller-e.g., her slurred, distorted voicing of one of the victims makes the horrible torture the women endure very real to listeners. Highly recommended for crime fiction enthusiasts and fans of Slaughter's Will Trent and "Grant County" series but definitely not for the squeamish. [The Delacorte hc was described as "a high-octane summer read," LJ 7/09.-Ed.]-Ilka Gordon, Siegal Coll. of Judaic Studies Lib., Cleveland (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Prologue They had been married forty years to the day and Judith still felt like she didn't know everything about her husband. Forty years of cooking Henry's dinner, forty years of ironing his shirts, forty years of sleeping in his bed, and he was still a mystery. Maybe that was why she kept doing all these things for him with little or no complaint. There was a lot to be said for a man who, after forty years, still managed to hold your attention.  Judith rolled down the car window, letting in some of the cool, spring air. Downtown Atlanta was only thirty minutes away, but out here in Conyers, you could still find areas of undeveloped land, even some small farms. It was a quiet place, and Atlanta was just far enough away so that she could appreciate the peace. Still, Judith sighed as she caught a quick glimpse of the city's skyscrapers on the distant horizon, thinking, home .  She was surprised at the thought, that Atlanta was now a place she considered her home. Her life until recently had been suburban, even rural. She preferred the open spaces to the concrete sidewalks of the city, even while she admitted that it was nice living in so central a location that you could walk to the corner store or a little café if the mood struck you.  Days would pass without her even having to get into a car- the type of life she would have never dreamed of ten years ago. She could tell Henry felt the same. His shoulders bunched up around his ears with tight resolve as he navigated the Buick down a narrow country road. After decades of driving just about every highway and interstate in the country, he instinctively knew all the back routes, the doglegs and shortcuts.  Judith trusted him to get them home safely. She sat back in her seat, staring out the window, blurring her eyes so that the trees bordering the road seemed more like a thick forest. She made the trip to Conyers at least once a week, and every time she felt like she saw something new-a small house she'd never noticed, a bridge she'd bumped over many times but never paid attention to. Life was like that. You didn't realize what was passing you by until you slowed down a little bit to get a better look.  They'd just come from an anniversary party in their honor, thrown together by their son. Well, more likely thrown together by Tom's wife, who managed his life like an executive assistant, housekeeper, babysitter, cook and-presumably-concubine all rolled up into one. Tom had been a joyful surprise, his birth an event doctors had said would never come about. Judith had loved every part of him on first sight, accepted him as a gift that she would cherish with every bone in her body. She had done everything for him, and now that Tom was in his thirties, he still seemed to need an awful lot of taking care of. Perhaps Judith had been too conventional a wife, too subservient a mother, so that her son had grown into the sort of man who needed-expected-a wife to do everything for him. Judith certainly had not enslaved herself to Henry. They had married in 1969, a time when women could actually have interests other than cooking the perfect pot roast and discovering the best method to get stains out of the carpet. From the start, Judith had been determined to make her life as interesting as possible. She'd been a room mother at Tom's school. She'd volunteered at the local homeless shelter and helped start a recycling group in the neighborhood. When Tom was older, Judith took a job doing light bookkeeping for a local business and joined a running team through t Excerpted from Undone by Karin Slaughter All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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