FAITHLESS by Karin Slaughter
Karin Slaughter continues her popular series about the lives of Jeffrey Tolliver and his ex-wife Sara Linton in her new novel FAITHLESS. Sara is the medical examiner for Grant County, Georgia and Jeffrey is the police chief. They work together and sometimes try to live together but their road to happiness is not an easy one. Still the mysteries with which they become involved and their ongoing relationship make for compulsive reading.
FAITHLESS starts off with a shocker as Sara and Jeffrey literally stumble over an air pipe sticking out of the ground. Beneath the ground they uncover a box which contains the body of a young girl. She has obviously been buried alive. This discovery leads them to a farm in an adjacent county where a group of religious zealots live and work.
These seem to be God fearing people but evil can lurk anywhere. Sara and Jeffrey learn that even the most devout can have secrets in their lives; and sometimes these secrets can lead to abuse both physical and emotional, as well as to murder.
The murder mysteries are always the hook Slaughter uses to pull you into her books, but it is the personalities and relationships that hold your attention. Sara and Jeffrey are two people who totally love each other but their weaknesses and their failure to make their relationship a top priority keeps them apart. They are both good at their jobs but weak on their relationship.
Lena Adams is another key player in these books. She is one of Jeffrey's detectives and as such plays an important role in maintaining the law in Grant County. But Lena has weaknesses too. She has a dominating boyfriend who is not above beating her when she is not submissive to his ways. Lena hates her life but somehow seems powerless to escape it.
Slaughter gives a full view of each character in these pages and lets the mystery of the buried girl lead to further exploration of the lives of Sara, Jeffrey and Lena. Still the circumstances of the burial and the people it involved takes center stage and is played out in full before the pages end.
There is a lot of violence and blood in the pages of FAITHLESS but it is all necessary to delineate the evil that is being done. This is not a book for the weak of stomach but is immensely satisfying for those who can endure and even enjoy the detailed depiction of the events of the case. Slaughter knows how to keep the reader in the moment, and she is in command all the way.
If you enjoyed the previous Sara/Jeffrey books then you are going to have a great time with this latest installment. Those new to Slaughter's writings can enjoy it as well as it is a stand-alone story that is only enhanced by what went before.
If you like mysteries that grip your attention and completely hold it for the length of the book, then FAITHLESS should be at the top of your must read list.
FAITHLESS is published by Delacourte Press. It contains 392 pages and sells for $25.00.