This book opens up with a dramatic starter as Faith returns to her mother's house and is immediately put in the middle of what looks like a war zone. It makes for some high octane reading very early on. It certainly put me in the frame of mind for the investigation that would follow this crazy situation.
I found that by reading the Will Trent books, I had a feel for the characters Will and Faith, but beyond that there were a lot of unanswered questions. This book seems to address Faith and her history which I liked. The books pace starts kind of frenzied and to be honest doesn't let up much pace at all throughout the book, it almost made me read with a sense of urgency.
The story however does require an element of concentration, there are a lot of theories and characters names very early on meaning you really do need to pay attention to follow these threads all the way through. Sadly the downside to such an intense book is that as readers you are so drawn in you forget your surroundings (never good when you forget to turn the bath off').
As the book gets going we see Will Trent with the help of Sara Linton try to discover who is behind the disappearance of Faith's mother. OF course Will has his doubts about Evelyn, but for the sake of his partner he does everything in his power to find her, even if it means breaking the rules. Will is not the sort of character to break the rules, which is where his boss, and Evelyn's close friend, Amanda Wagner comes into play.
Amanda is a character that is slightly off kilter, but a character that I absolutely adore. She is a no nonsense old school woman that is determined to find her friend, and she doesn't care who she has to lie to or trample on to find her. Sara Linton plays the lesser role in the overall story, but as other parts of the series begin to develop, you can see where she is starting to get her life back together.
Following the end of the Grant County series, I was convinced that there would never be a better male lead that Jeffrey Tolliver. I was so wrong, and if I am being completely honest, a little bit smitten with my `new' favourite male lead Will Trent.
As the story reaches its climax, lots of the parts of the puzzle start to come together. The threads that had been interwoven throughout the book now start to be explained, and the ending was absolutely brilliant.
Yet again I read a fast paced, tense thriller by Karin Slaughter that left me feeling sad I had finished another instalment. Having said that it again has left us as readers with the perfect platform for the next part of the series, and boy do I want to know how that goes. I cannot praise Karin Slaughter highly enough, she is an author that has taken chances, but knew exactly where they were leading, and the pathway she took was sheer genius. If you haven't read her work before I would strongly suggest you start at the beginning and work your way through them, you won't be disappointed.
