G754 Book Review of the kept woman by Karin Slaughter

Name of Book: The Kept Woman

Author: Karin Slaughter

ISBN: 978-0-06-243021-2

Publisher: William Morrow

Type of book: Mystery, thriller, drugs, foster houses, secret child, secrets, relationships, mother/daughter, mentors, Georgia, Atlanta, glamour, high life

Year it was published: 2016

Summary:

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.

Characters:

While there are quite a lot of characters in the story, main ones would be Angie and Will Trent, a husband-and-wife on paper but not in actions. Angie is presented as extremely ruthless, cold and uncaring by other characters who dared to do the unthinkable, but when its time for her voice to speak, she is best described as survivor and someone who is hotheaded and impulsive and having an extremely tough time in childhood, while Will Trent has his own psychological issues with relationships and life in general and is seeking more familiar.

Theme:

You never know the person's history

Plot:

The story is in third person narrative primarily from Angie's and Will's points of view. The story also takes place in Georgia, yes in the infamous city of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Aside from Will and Angie as well as the descriptions of intrigue and that the author seems to know what she is talking about, I have to say that the weaknesses outweighed the positives of the book. I didn't like being thrown into the story, introduced to characters and know very little of their backgrounds or why they are in one another's lives; I also found some of the chapters to be very long which is not a good thing for me because I'm the type that likes to finish chapters before doing something else. Also, in my opinion, despite the thickness of the book, not much psychology of the characters is delved into and introduced.

Author Information:
(From the book)

Karin Slaughter is the #1 internationally bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including the Will Trent and Grant County Serries and the instant New York TImes bestsellers Cop TOwn and Pretty Girls. There are more than thirty-five million copies of her books in print around the world. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia

Opinion:

Although the read was exciting and it definitely kept the reader on the edge of one's seat, my fault with the book is that its part of the series, and I'm a type of person that must read other books before reading the current publication, or at least I must have copies of previous publications prior to this one. The book is #8 of Will Trent series, and its my introduction to him as well as to the author. I also feel as if some things in the novel aren't explained well, and in some cases they tended to be predictable. What is the book's strength are the characters of Angie and Will, because there seemed to be paradoxes when it came to Angie; for Will and others described her one way, but she saw herself in another way, and it makes for a well-rounded character. I think that unless the reader is familiar with the characters and the series, there was frustration for me when it came to figuring out their relationships and the roles they carry in one another's lives. Best book series to compare it to is to Susan Spann's Shinobi Mysteries because although there is more focus on the present, I didn't have the advantage of previous knowledge of characters to help me enjoy the story, which is similar to Shinobi Mysteries.

This is for Pump Up Your Book

3 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)