Indelible : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: CHAOTIC NOT COMPLEX
Review: A disappointing attempt to provide a novel explanation for a lethal hostage situation. This book lacks the focus and substance of Slaughter's previous efforts.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent addition to the series
Review: I have read and enjoyed all 4 books in her series and this one answered some of the questions about Jeffrey and Sara's early history. If you are reading a series about the same people, it's nice to know how they got there and how the relationship began. This one was well written and explained a lot about the relationship and how it came to be and where they are now.

Rating:
Summary: Great Next Book in the Series
Review: If you've been with Ms. Slaughter since Blindsighted, you won't be disappointed by her latest book in the series. I enjoyed it tremendously and count it as the best in the series. I won't rehash the plot(s) as you can read other reviews, but I couldn't put it down until I had turned the last page.

Some nay sayers who read this as their first book in the series seem disappointed - I say start with Blindsighted and move forward. You won't regret it!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: In "Indelible", Karin Slaughter gives us a wealth of colorful, believable characters, as well as a great storyline, tension, and carefully crafted "flashbacks" which make up the bulk of the novel. We get a very perceptive glimpse into small-town prejudices and how strongly they affect the story's male lead character, Jeffrey Tolliver, as well as other characters in the story.

Sara Linton, as Jeffrey's ex-wife, has her own past horrors and baggage, and these issues are also described in flashbacks into the past.

The present-time hostage situation throws Jeffrey and Sara together again, in a struggle to survive, and the past and it's secrets are the major catalyst in the standoff.

This novel is a real nail-biter and I can't stress enough how well the characters are fleshed-out and how well the past and present stories relate to each other.

The dialogue is crisp and believable, the story is resolved in a satisfying manner. I read this book in two nights. It was that hard to put down!

Rating:
Summary: Amazing writing
Review: Karin Slaughter has a way with words and descriptions that makes this novel very hard to put down. Her descriptions and the flaws of her characters make them real people. Her plot is unpredictable which increases the suspense. Since reading this book, I have read her previous four - with the same satisfaction.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: Ms. Slaughter manages to fit two stories into this book but each one plays off the other. Very suspenseful and you learn a lot of history in regards to Jeff and Sara. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Fills in some blanks but ...
Review: not nearly as good as the first books. Interesting and I don;t regret buying it but not as intense and gripping as the first few which I would recommend much more highly.

Rating:
Summary: Two stories in one
Review: This 4th book about pediatrician/small town medical examiner Sara Linton and her ex-husband chief of police Jeffery Tolliver is actually two stories: One that is happening now and one that happened 12 years ago.
12 years ago, before Sara and Jeffrey got married, they went to visit Jeffrey's childhood town. As soon as they get there, they want to get away again. Jeffrey's friends are a weird bunch of people, his mother is an alcoholic insulting Sara almost before they have met, and Sara keeps hearing people telling her that Jeffrey is not right for her.
Before they have a chance to leave, a local junkie gets killed and Jeffrey and Sara are thrown into the investigation, or rather the non-existent investigation led by Hoss, the town's chief of police and Jeffrey's long time mentor and hero.
The killing is just the beginning, pretty soon things start falling apart, and we are going even further back in time, back to Jeffrey and his friend's high school days. Nothing is really as it seems, and old secrets are being dug up, with fatal consequences for all involved.
Because of some of those secrets being dug up, Sara and Jeffrey find themselves in the middle of a violent hostage situation 12 years later, when two men storm the police station with only one thing in mind - to kill Jeffrey.
The troubled female officer, Lena Adams, who was raped and almost killed in the first book Blindsighted, and because of that unable to function as an officer, has been let back into the force. She is determined to save the day and let Jeffrey know that she does belong to the force. Question is, can she do it before her own fears overtake her and before the hostage-takers kill everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Suspense at its finest
Review: This is the fourth in the series featuring pediatrician/coroner Sara Linton and her ex-husband/current lover Jeffrey Tolliver. Indelible delves into Jeffrey and Sara's past, their early relationship and especially about Jeffrey's youth in Sylacuga, Alabama.

The story interweaves past and present. The book opens in the present with a hostage situation in the Grant County police station. Two men enter the police station, killing an officer, wounding others, and terrorizing a group of children visiting the station. One of the wounded is Jeffrey Tolliver. The men take hostages including Sara Linton who had been visiting Jeffrey.

The backstory moves to Jeffrey's hometown. He wants Sara to see who he really is and the only way for him to really do that is to have her see how he grew up. She meets his old friends and learns more than she really wants to. While there, one of Jeffrey's boyhood friend's is involved in a shooting, but his accounting of it does not square with the evidence. Robert ends up confessing to the shooting, but Jeffrey does not believe him. He searches for evidence to clear his friend and stumbles upon a body from a long ago murder. Sara and Jeffrey's relationship is tested to the limit when old secrets are exposed.

Karin Slaughter writes a really excellent series with fully drawn realistic, flawed characters. Her books are the melding of the best of plot-driven and character-driven stories. I was riveted to the very last page. I highly recommend the whole series, but it is not necessary to read the previous books to enjoy this book because it is sort of a prequel to others.


Rating:
Summary: Two Stories in One, Both Gripping
Review: Two gunmen burst into the Grant County Police Station, killing cops along the way, thinking one of them is the Chief of Police Jeffrey Tolliver. Then they take pediatrician/coroner Sara Linton, Tolliver's ex-wife; the aging receptionist; another deputy and three children who'd been touring the station hostage.

While being held against her will, Sara reflects on the past when she'd gone on her first vaction with her ex-husband. On their way to Florida they'd stopped in Sylacauga, Alabama, Tolliver's hometown, and he introduced Sara to his alcoholic mother and tells her about his shady past. She also met his best friend Robert. Later, Sara hears screams coming from Robert's home. She and Tolliver run over and find a dead man, apparently an intruder who had been shot and killed by Tolliver's friend. But had he really broken in or was everyone, including her ex-husband, covering something up?

As you hustle through the pages it becomes clear that there is a connection between what happened then and what's happening now and as the book picks up steam here I found myself reading as fast as humanly possible, eyes darting over black and white type at the speed of light, so eager was I to get to the end. What a good book.