Ahoy there me mateys! For those of ye who are new to me log, a word: though this log’s focus is on sci-fi, fantasy, and young adult, this Captain does have broader reading tastes. Occasionally, I will share some novels that I enjoyed that are off the charts (a non sci-fi, fantasy, or young adult novel), as it were. So today I bring ye a creepy murder mystery on Friday the 13th:
the kept woman (Karin Slaughter)
This novel came to me courtesy of me sister. While she is not a voracious reader, she does enjoy the police procedurals and murder mysteries on tv and very occasionally in books. In fact most of the episodes I have watched of such shows are from when I visit her. So she gave me this book to read and told me I had no choice because I read so fast that I could finish it in a day. Well it took me two but I am very glad she forced me to read this one even though I almost never read in this genre.
This was a whopper of a tale. I was immediately engrossed in the story and the mystery of it all. I thought the murder scene investigation in the beginning was particularly well done. I loved how even the detectives were baffled and how the reader got to figure out the circumstances with them. I loved the banter of primary detective, Will, and the rest of his team.
I was startled when the book shifted half-way through from the perspective of Will and his team to that of the missing person! It takes the reader back one week earlier and explains the lead up to the murder. It was bonkers to be inside of her crazy head and get her viewpoints of what had been going on. Then the perspective switches to present day for the very end of the book and the resolution. I have to admit that once the mystery of the crime scene was solved and it went back to present day that I didn’t really love the entire ending. However, to be fair, I started out listening to this in audio book format and then switched to the paperback so I could finish it in a couple of hours rather than the 8 hours I had left. So yes I was hooked.
My sister has already given me another Karin Slaughter book to read and says it is ever crazier than this one. I am rather looking forward to being in the mood for another book by the author in this genre. Arrrr!
Side note: I did not know that this be book 8 of a series. It seems I picked up Sarah @ brainfluff’s known tendency to read books from the middle of a series with no prior knowledge! I had no problem following along even if it did feel like all the characters had history. I just assumed that was good writing . . .
Goodreads has this to say about the novel:
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.
Relentlessly suspenseful and furiously paced, peopled with conflicted, fallible characters who leap from the page, The Kept Woman is a seamless blend of twisty police procedural and ingenious psychological thriller — a searing, unforgettable novel of love, loss, and redemption.
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