Will Trent Series – The Book Diva's Reads

The Kept Woman (Will Trent #8) by Karin Slaughter
ISBN: 9780062430212 (hardcover)
ISBN: 9780062430236 (eBook)
ISBN: 9781504733175 (audiobook)
ASIN: B019WVPSUO (Kindle edition)
Publication date: September 20, 2016
Publisher: William Morrow

Husbands and wives. Mothers and daughters. The past and the future.

Secrets bind them. And secrets can destroy them.

The author of the acclaimed standalone Pretty Girls returns with this long-awaited new novel in her bestselling Will Trent series—an electrifying, emotionally complex thriller that plunges the Georgia detective into the darkest depths of a case that just might destroy him.

With the discovery of a murder at an abandoned construction site, Will Trent and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are 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 searing novel of love, loss, and redemption. A seamless blend of twisty police procedural and ingenious psychological thriller, it marks Karin Slaughter’s triumphant return to her most popular series, sure to please new and diehard fans alike.

Will Trent is an agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). He finally is in a relationship with a good woman, has a good relationship with his GBI partner, and is dealing with the strange supervisory/surrogate-mother deal with his boss. The only problem Will continues to have is his estranged wife, Angie Polaski…well, that and a rape case that seemed to disintegrate before his eyes in Karin Slaughter’s latest, The Kept Woman.

Will Trent has overcome many obstacles in his life. He was abused as a child and foster-child. He married at a young age to a woman that was and continues to be a bully and emotionally abusive towards him and everyone else. He has a good career and has learned to cope with his untreated dyslexia. He has a stable relationship with a mature and loving woman, Sara Linton. The only major obstacles to his happiness are finding and divorcing his estranged wife and getting the rape charges to stick against a prominent and wealthy Atlanta professional athlete. Just when Will doesn’t think his life could get any better, or worse, he’s called to a crime scene with a dead retired police officer and evidence that his estranged wife has been seriously injured, if not murdered, at the same location. Now Will, his GBI partner Faith Mitchell, his lover and newly-hired GBI pathologist Sara Linton, and his boss, Amanda Wagner, must all work around the clock to uncover why the retired police officer was murdered and where is Angie. Will they be able to find her before it’s too late or is this just another game that Angie’s playing to mess with Will’s head?

I found The Kept Woman to be a rather fast-paced and engrossing read. The only reason I put this book down was due to rapidly worsening migraine headache. Ms. Slaughter has the ability to pull me into each of stories from the first page and keep my attention to the last line on the last page. Did I like The Kept Woman? YES! This story has a lot of dark themes: physical child abuse, sexual child abuse, child prostitution, drug abuse, prostitution, rape, incest, marital abuse, dirty police officers, and murder. Added into this mix is the elite world of professional athletes and their ability to get anything covered up with the right amount of money. There are plenty of bad guys in this story, Angie Polaski, a group of professional athletes, some bad/dirty police officers, and everyone professionally associated with the professional athletes and cover-ups of their misdeeds. The Kept Woman provides stories within stories within stories and they all seemed to be tied to events in the past, some over 30 years in the making. I could go on and on about this book but I’ll simply end with Read This Book! Seriously, if you enjoy reading mystery thrillers or psychological thrillers then this is definitely a book you’ll want to read. Although this is the eighth book (tenth if you count the novellas) in the Will Trent series, it is possible to read this book and not feel as if you’ve missed out on the backstory and at the same time make you want to go back and read all of the previous books. I look forward to the next installment in this series, but while I’m waiting I’ll just have to reread the entire Will Trent series. (Yes, this series is just that good.)

Disclaimer: I received a free digital copy of this book for review purposes from the publisher via Edelweiss. I was not paid, required, or otherwise obligated to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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Unseen by Karin Slaughter
ISBN: 9780345539472 (hardcover)
ISBN: 9780345539489 (ebook)
ASIN: B00AXIZ3HE (Kindle edition)
Publication date: July 2, 2013
Publisher: Delacorte Press

Karin Slaughter’s New York Times bestselling novels are utterly riveting and masterfully drawn. Her latest thriller, Unseen, pits detectives, lovers, and enemies against one another in an unforgettable standoff between righteous courage and deepest evil.

Bill Black is a scary guy: a tall ex-con who rides to work on a Harley and trails an air of violence wherever he goes. In Macon, Georgia, Bill has caught the eye of a wiry little drug dealer and his cunning girlfriend. They think Bill might be a useful ally. They don’t know that Bill is actually a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent named Will Trent. Or that he is fighting his own demons, undercover and cut off from the support of Sara Linton—the woman he loves, who cannot be told of the risk Will is taking.

Sara herself has come to Macon because of a cop shooting: Her stepson, Jared, has been gunned down in his own home. Sara holds Lena, Jared’s wife, responsible: Lena, a detective, has been a magnet for trouble all her life, and Jared’s attack is not the first time someone Sara loved got caught in the crossfire. Furious, Sara finds herself involved in the same case that Will is working without even knowing it, and soon danger is swirling around both of them.

In a novel of fierce intensity, shifting allegiances, and shocking twists, two investigations collide with a conspiracy straddling both sides of the law. Karin Slaughter’s latest is both an electrifying thriller and a piercing study of human nature: what happens when good people face the unseen evils in their lives.

Unseen provides a fascinating glimpse of the interaction between characters from both the Will Trent and the Grant County series by Ms. Slaughter. Sara Linton is still in a romantic relationship with Will Trent and living in Atlanta. Lena Adams is now a detective in Macon and has married Sara’s stepson, Jared Long. After a home invasion and attempts on both Lena and Jared’s lives, Jared is critically injured and in the ICU at Macon General Hospital. Both Darnell, Jared’s mother, and Sara presume Lena must be to blame. Darnell is relying on Sara for emotional support during this trying time, and Sara is wishing she can rely on Will but he’s on an undercover assignment and unavailable. Sara’s past, present and possible future collide as Jared recuperates, Lena suffers in silence, and Will attempts to uncover a growing menace from a new drug dealer, Big Whitey.

Ms. Slaughter incorporates major and menacing drug dealers, child abduction/prostitution/pornography, corrupt police officers, and much more in a taut story that pulled me in from the first page to the very last. Unseen provides bad guys that are willing to kill anyone, including police officers, to send a message of fear and intimidation. Lena suffers silently presuming her investigation and recent drug bust may have resulted in a retaliatory strike against her and her husband. She’s also depressed and somewhat guilty that her recent miscarriage may have been punishment for her past. Will is tormented over the idea that he can’t be readily available to support Sara in this crisis situation but he’s a little closer to the situation than anyone can know as he plays a corrupt ex-con trying to catch the bad guys. Unseen reveals that life isn’t black and white and the law isn’t static, sometimes both stray into the gray areas in order for true justice to be done and for the innocents to be protected and the corrupt to be punished. If you enjoy thrillers, then you’ll definitely want to read Unseen.

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Disclaimer: I received a digital copy of this book free for review purposes from the publisher via Edelweiss and NetGalley. I was not paid, required or otherwise obligated to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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