By: Karin Slaughter
Will Trent #8
ISBN: 9780062430212
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: 9/20/2016
Format: Other
My Rating: 5 Stars + Top Books of 2016 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.
Audio book narrated by Kathleen Early. A Must Pre-Order!
My Review
A very special "thank you" to Edelweiss, William Morrow-HarperCollins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. One of the top female crime writers in the world, Karin Slaughter returns following her stellar performance Pretty Girls, landing on My Top 10 Books of 2015 and Cop Town landing on My Top 30 Books for 2014 with her continuation of the highly anticipated, #8 Will Trent Series THE KEPT WOMAN. Man, "Slaughter can describe evil to the very core." Set in HOT Atlanta, avid fans of Will Trent, Sara, and Angie (triangle)--you are going to devour The Kept Woman, and at the same time, get to catch up with Amanda, Faith, Tess and familiar characters. Worthy of all the hype. Please, someone make this into a movie/TV series. What is the holdup? Angie is a woman we all love to hate. Please let her DIE! Will is a flawed man you want to root for. Sara is a woman you want a happy ending with the man she longs to build a normal life with. Angie is always an ongoing source of pain, drama, and conflict. One nasty Bitch. When will the nightmare be over? Does Angie have a heart? Will she ever let Will go and be free from her clutches? Damaged, beyond comprehension, Angie a former cop, private eye, and a pro at running scams, running girls, running pills. How has her past caught up with her present? The novel opens when the body of an Atlanta ex-cop, Dale Harding is found in a warehouse dead. There is evidence of another victim from the blood. Special Agent Will Trent knows the warehouse, a club belonging to athlete, famous basketball star-Marcus Rippy, having just walked on a rape charge. He had repeatedly brutally assaulted his victim. A woman. Keisha Miscavage, her accuser. Now he is hiding behind lawyers. Dr. Sara Linton is on the case as well as her lover, Will Trent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. All things point to involvement with the nasty ex-wife Angie Polaski, Will has been trying to divorce for years. She is in and out of his life like a bad revolving door. Of course Amanda and Faith are thinking maybe Angie is dead. (we/Sara can only dream). She is too evil to die. From flashbacks of events prior to the murder, the missing woman—a violent struggle. Blood. The Glock is registered to none other than Angie Polaski. Will’s ex-wife, and the woman he met as a girl. Dark hair, smart mouth, killer body. Angie had been in and out of Will’s life like a mosquito since he was eleven years old at the Atlanta’s Children’s Home—both surviving abuse, neglect, abandonment, torture. Wounded. Dangerous. Desperate. Now Sara wonders what Will has been up to. Has he been honest? Seeing Angie behind her back? Angie was a cop for ten years and she knows the ropes. Will did not love her and according to him, he had been searching for her for a year to file divorce papers. Their marriage was a scam, something they had literally done on a dare. Will had promised Sara he was doing everything possible to end it. She had never questioned him until now. There had to be more to the story. A break in, notes left on the car. Someone murdered a cop who was on Kip Kilpatrick’s payroll in the service of Marcus Rippy. Also Angie had been stalking Sara, Will’s girlfriend. Sara is beyond upset picturing Angie at Will’s house touching her things. Angie always dictated the terms of their relationship. A twisted lover. One minute Angie loved him and the next she hated him. Disappearing months or years at a time. She was a constant in his life for nearly three decades. Everyone has a past. Will’s scars were both emotional and physical. He did not trust easily and it had taken years to break the hold Angie had over him. Was it broken? Now, what had Angie gotten herself involved in now? Where was Angie and how was she mixed up in this mess? The new intense crime (Will/Sara/Angie) will bring them all together once again. Rest assured, you will be anxiously awaiting the next Will Trent thriller!
“Damage. Some people had holes inside of them that they spent their lives trying to fill. With hate. With pills. With scheming. With jealousy. With a child’s love. With a man’s fist. Badness doesn’t come all at once.
The dominoes fall over time. You hurt someone by mistake and they let you get away with it. Then you try hurting them on purpose and they still stick around. And then you realize that the more you hurt them, the better you feel. So you keep hurting them and they keep hanging on, and the years roll by, and you convince yourself that the fact that they still stand by you, means that the pain you cause is okay. But you hate them for it. For what you do to them. For what they do to you.”
My favorite part: “Anybody know a doctor?.” Sara said, “I’m NOT touching her.” (go girl)! On a serious note, once again Slaughter uses violence as a powerful tool in her crime writing. A means to talk about greater issues affecting society, and women; with domestic abuse, child abuse and rape. She is a pro at portraying women who have suffered horrendous abuse and demonstrates how they put their life back together. From the social aspects to the horrific tragic acts of the past, emotional and psychological damage and how they interact within relationships and careers. An EW online interview with the author: “The Kept Woman, like many of my novels, explores how the events of the present can rip a tunnel into a long-gone past,” Slaughter tells EW.
“But more so than anything I’ve written, this book comments specifically and strongly on domestic abuse. Violence against women is an epidemic, transcending geography and social status, and in The Kept Woman I aim to shine a light on this heartbreaking truth.” HINT! I want to see Karin Slaughter featured on Younger (one of my favorite shows), an American comedy-drama television series, from the creator of Sex and the City , based on the Pamela Redmond Satran’s novel of the same name-- created and produced by Darren Star. With the frequent mentions of rival HarperCollins, would love to see Slaughter featured in a guest appearance scene with Maggie, played by Debi Mazar (Maggie is a 40-something lesbian artist, who is Liza's roommate and closest friend). Please, let it be a more prominent scene than the short clip with author, Jennifer Weiner. If you blinked your eyes, you would have missed it. If you are a book lover, you will love the name dropping of top authors and publishers. Between sharp tongue, witty, Maggie- and Diana Trout, played by Miriam Shor (temperamental head of marketing) at the publishing house where Liza just got a job by pretending to be 26 years old—Slaughter’s appearance would be a total riot and ratings would soar! Also make sure to reference, Will Trent, Angie, and Sara to maximize the drama. Cannot wait for Season 3! NO one can write like the "Queen" of crime thrillers, Karin Slaughter! Have read them all—highly recommend. For new readers, Slaughter does a good job with a backstory of the characters from previous books. As always, plenty of action, crime, violence, and corruption. The Will Trent series
• Triptych (2006) • Fractured (2008) • Undone (2009), Genesis (UK/Australia title) • Broken (2010) • Fallen (2011) • Snatched (2012, ebook novella) • Criminal (2012) • Busted (2013) • Unseen (2013) • The Kept Woman (2016)
Review Links:
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About the Author
Karin Slaughter is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of fifteen thrillers, including UNSEEN, CRIMINAL, FALLEN, BROKEN, UNDONE, FRACTURED, BEYOND REACH, TRIPTYCH, FAITHLESS, COP TOWN, and the e-original short stories “Snatched” and “Busted.”
Slaughter was born in a small southern Georgia community, and now resides in Atlanta. She is widely credited with first coining the term "investigoogling" in 2006. Read More
