Rating: 
Summary: Great beginning...
Review: Set in a small town in Georgia, BLINDSIGHTED begins with a bang. Within the first few pages, the main character, Sara Linton, discovers a body in the bathroom of the local resturant. The details of this rape/murder begin to unfold quickly. Sara is a doctor in town as well as the coroner. Sara and her ex-husband (the local police chief) work together to figure out the rape/murder. In trying to solve the murder, the case takes many turns and twists. In addition to learning more about the case, the author sprinkles in tidbits about the main characters. BLINDSIGHTED is a great beginning to a series. Karin Slaughter has created a good group of characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Sara Linton is a strong female character - her relationship with her ex-husband is complicated and central to the book. I look forward to the next book in the series...
Rating:
Summary: Good debut
Review: This is Karin Slaughter's first published novel and it is pretty good. The characters are realistic and down-to-earth where one can easily identify with them. Sara Linton works as a pediatrician in a small town in Georgia. She is also the town's coroner who is going to have a very busy week. She discovers the mutilated body of Sybil Adams in the local diner and a few days later finds another victim placed in the hood of her car. What makes this case a little more complicated is that her ex-husband, Jeffrey Tolliver, is the town sheriff who is investigating the assaults. One thing that makes this work interesting is the inclusion of Lena Adams, the sister of the first victim. Lena works for the sheriff as a police deputy and she is going to have a hard time with this case. During the last couple of years she has withdrawn from her twin sister and had not talked much to her. It took her death to show how much her sister's death affected her. All of the major characters are hiding either a personal secret or a weakness that helps to enhance the story line. During the week that the case takes place several of the characters will go though some life altering changes which in the end will improve on their lives. The identity of the serial killer is predictable once you get to know who are the characters in the book. BLINDSIGHTED is a good debut for a promising new author and I will be looking forward to her next book.
Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: For a first time author, this book was really good! Worth the read! Gets better as it goes on!
Rating: 
Summary: Okay but no great shakes
Review: Nothing original here, not in the setting, plot or characters. Not even the gore is original. But the writing is competent. I think it is grossly unfair to say Slaughter is a worse writer than Kathy Reichs, however, since no one is a worse writer than Reichs!
Rating:
Summary: From Her Soapbox..
Review: First-novelist Karin Slaughter has a message: All Men Are Swine!!!! Yes, it's true. From Daddy to Big Brother to Uncle to cheating husbands to serial rapists...they all think with their genitalia. And no woman, no matter how strong, fierce, intelligent, worldwise, or saintly, can escape damage. If they are lucky, they might get away with a few scratches--like being blinded for life. If not, well, how about being carved to pieces during and after a rape (which the author, in the earnest voice of one of her characters, carefully explains to us is NOT a sexual crime, but one of anger, control, and hatred of women. Whew! Glad to know that.). Because this is a first novel, I tried very hard as a reader to give Ms. Slaughter the benefit of the doubt. OK, some of her premises are not only unbelieveable, but hilarious. Case in point: a single young mother dies two weeks after giving birth to twin girls. Does the state give the babies to a loving, adoptive couple? Hell no...they go to an alcoholic bachelor uncle! Yeah, right...and does Uncle do well by his charges? Refer to paragraph one above. The book is riddled with equally ridiculous circumstances, which makes it very hard to take seriously. I will not name them here, because many of the worst offenses take place late in the book when the murderer is revealed. But trust me. Let's move on to the flat, dull, and singularly unlikeable main character: Grant County, Georgia, pediatrician and coroner Dr. Sara Linton (yes, I said pediatrician and coroner. First you deal with a 12-year-old boy who has a fatal, incurable disease, then you hop-skip to the morgue to perform an autopsy on a friend who has had a fatal encounter with the most vicious rapist ever known [see first paragraph above]). Dr. Linton is, dare I say it? A SAINT. But she has a few problems, not the least of which is that her ex-husband, the love of her life, did something BAD to her from which she will never recover emotionally, no matter how much he slimes around and oozes guilt. Said ex-husband, Jeffrey, happens to double as the police chief, so he has lots of time to ooze, as he inexplicably must chat up Sara during each of the unspeakable autopsies of the victims. He is so sincere. But of course, being a man, so terribly insensitive. Case in point: Sara, having found the first victim's bloody, battered, defiled, mutilated body, which literally falls on her, must now perform the gruesome autopsy. Jeffrey's question: "Sara, are you ok?" MEN! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Sara is just bowled over by the stupidity of the question. Gosh, can you blame her, girls? Let's move on now to hard-bitten, chip-on-her-shoulder Lena Adams, Jeffrey's hand-picked deputy, and the twin sister of the first victim. Lena is devastated, of course, by her sister's murder. So devastated that she easily escapes poor, ineffectual, solicitous Jeffrey, runs into the morgue, breaches all security, and bursts into the correct autopsy room in time to see every vicious wound on her sister before startled Sara has time to clean up the body for viewing. And whose fault is that, huh? Well Jeffrey's of course. Sara glares at him over the body and the grieving Lena, but Jeffy-boy is glad to see that at least Sara combed the blood out of the corpse's hair before her twin could see her. OK, enough. I gave this book three stars because it is a first effort, and it is obvious that Ms. Slaughter made a herculean try at writing a really meaningful novel. What she meant to do, I think, was to transcend the average serial-rapist novel and try to give meaning to violence run amok. I recognize and applaud her earnest attempt. Supposedly, "Blindsighted" is the first in a trilogy. I'm sure it's too late, but I beg Ms. Slaughter to please step down from the soapbox, round out her very one-dimensional cliched characters, and just tell the story.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Mediocre. What's all the fuss.
Review: I found this book very run of the mill. Characters were fairly two dimensional, plot was fairly plodding. Not awful, but nothing out of the ordinary either. Doesn't even come close to Kathy Reichs or Patricia Cornwell. No substance.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Debut......
Review: This was an excellent first novel......it had me from page 1. The characters were well defined (though at times a little hokey!) and the story kept moving at an interesting pace. I didn't have the villain pegged until the last minute. If you like the classic murder mystery, this book is for you....with just a touch of romance thrown in to keep it interesting. All in all, I loved the book and will definitely read any sequel by Ms. Slaughter.
Rating:
Summary: Blindsighted
Review: This was a book that was hard to put down right from the start. One thing, however bothered me, whenever 2 characters greeted each other, no matter who they were, it seemed the response was always angry or sarcastic. I wonder if the author thinks that is the way people talk to each other.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Debut!
Review: BLINDSIGHTED, Karin Slaughter's first outing, draws the reader into an absolute "can't put it down" story while at the same time pulls no punches. Ms. Slaughter shows that she possesses an intimate acquaintance not only with the day-to-day methodology of criminal investigation, but also with the often feral brutality of murder. After finishing the last sentence of Chapter Four, you'll find yourself, as I did, gasping for breath and reminding yourself out loud that what you're reading is a work of fiction. Make no mistakes, this is no "Miss Marple" cozy whodunnit. This is no police procedural. This is serial murder: bloody, gruesome, unexplained and close to home. In short. . .buy it.
Rating:
Summary: GRUESOME SUBJECT--Amazing read!!!
Review: Karin Slaughter is out of the starting gate with a smash hit on her hands! Very impressive book I must say! Her gift for writing a story about such a gruesome subject knocked the socks right off my feet-- Her storytelling ability is simply 'amazing!' Enough said. Buy the book and see for yourself!
|
