Following hot on the heels of my high praise for Karin Slaughter, I decided it was time to delve back into her writing. I mentioned that Karin was brave in taking her series in a new direction and then bringing two seemingly unrelated story threads together. “Broken” marks the second outing of this amalgamation.
All of our favourite characters feature in this book and all are given the chance to shine. Sara is still seething at Lena and does everything in her power to avoid her. Lena is still Lena, trying to do good but landing herself in trouble and Will Trent, well he is just placed bang in the middle of the whole situation and is trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
If I am honest, I was disappointed with the opening chapters of Broken. The prologue felt a bit to samey and predictable. Once the book got going though, it really got going. The dynamics between all of the characters feels fresh. Watching Will interact with both Sara and Lena is fascinating. Sara’s hatred towards Lena, does not cloud his judgment and so we are treated to both sides of the fall out of their tragic story.
The story itself centres around the murder of a young college student supposedly at the hands of a retard young man. Inevitably, all is not as it seems though and the story that unfolds twists and turns more times than maggot on a fishing hook.
Will’s interviewing techniques are always fascinating and Karin Slaughter does a nice job of portraying the parallels and discrepancies regarding his character and that of the immortal Jeffrey Tolliver.
The plot is tight and quite clever. Karin resists the urge to tell a story about your typical disturbed serial killer but instead focuses on the more realistic solving of some murders where the motivation for the crime makes sense.
The great thing about this book is that whilst all our favourites are present, Karin could have easily have just centred the book around them. Instead we are treated to all of the supporting characters attached to each character. Will is constantly talking to his heavily pregnant partner, Sara has her loveable sister and parents, and Lena has her boyfriend and the police force. Each time the book goes to each of this characters the pace doesn’t let up and the story remains interesting as a result. Alongside this you have the residents of Grant Country all of which are well portrayed and interesting.
“Broken” then, continues Karin Slaughters excellent run of form. The lives of the characters are neatly wrapped up but there are some dangling cliff hangers to make you impatient for the next book. My rating: 8.9
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