Grant County and Will Trent In Review

 (<--- awesome picture of Karin, right?)

So, Grant County and Will Trent have come to a close for now. Well, Grant County is over for good I think. They'll all be Will Trent crossovers under the Will Trent name. 

That's what it looks like, at least.

I love them for the most part. 

I think my feelings about Lena are clear, so I'm not going to go belabor that. 

But lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. 

So, a lot happens over the course of these series. I think Slaughter's choices make for a really...surprising and interesting series. 

That doesn't mean I'm happy with all her choices. 

Unseen, Karin Slaughter

Fucking Lena.

Goddammit.

So, last we saw Lena, she was leaving Grant County with Jared, Jeffery's son, in Broken.

Now Jared's in the hospital after being shot. In the home he shares with Lena. Just days after a raid she's leading goes bad. Really bad.

You can see where I'm going with this right? Lena's sloppiness at least, negligence at most, have caused someone else to pay with their lives. Again.

You would be mostly right. Jared makes it. And while their marriage is going through some issues, they come out at the end intact and looking up. Talking about kids. (Cause Lena as a mother isn't a bit terrifying.) Also, Lena's actions aren't directly responsible for his attack, though they didn't exactly help.

Her case is related to his attack and she could have done more, but mostly after the fact. So, maybe she couldn't have stopped it, but...

She also got Will involved.

You can imagine Sara's opinion on that.

Criminal, Karin Slaughter

O. M. G!!

This was fantastic!

We finally get to learn more about Will's past.

So, Will and Sara are still going strong. Unfortunately, he spirals into despair when he finds out his father was released from prison.

We know is father killed his mother, but not much else.

Actually, there's another reason this is an awesome book: not only do we learn more about Will's past, we learn more about Amanda's.

Now, in Fallen, Faith's mom tells Will that Amanda is more like his mom that he thinks. As soon as she said that, I figured Amanda had found him when he was a baby. Still, now we get to see the whole story play out.

So, as much as I love that we learn about Will's origins, I love that we get to see young an naive Amanda.

Yes, Amanda was naive. Sheltered even.

Fallen, Karin Slaughter

I love this one! This series just gets better and better.

So, we learn a lot about Faith, her mom, and her mom's past. Remember I mentioned Will investigated Faith's mom? Well, now we get some answers.

So, Faith had her baby. I don't think I mentioned she was preggers, but she was. Like her first child, this was an oops baby. The father doesn't even know about the baby until this book. Kinda a shocker for him since they'd broken up before Faith even knew she was pregnant. She also found out she had diabetes at the same time.

So, Faith's life has been pretty all over lately.

Now, she's just had her baby and is returning home from mandated work training when she realizes something is wrong: her mom isn't answering any of her phone calls.

She finally makes it home in time to find one dead, one hostage, one with a gun, but no mom. Her mom managed to get the baby into the locked shed where her weapons are kept, but other than that, there's no sign of her mother.

Faith calls 911, but storms the house herself and kills the remaining two baddies. And despite one being a hostage, they are both baddies.

So, we start with some harcore Rambo shit from Faith.

After that it gets a bit more complicated.

Broken, Karin Slaughter

Ok, so now we've got a real crossover.

Unfortunately, that means Lena's back.

Goddamnit!!

Sigh.

Ok, lets get to it.

It's Thanksgiving in Grant County.  Sara is home for the first time since Jeffery died. And what happens? That's right, Lena fucks up.

So, Sara calls Amanda and she sends Will.

As far as the Sara/Will story, this was a good book. They get to know each other better, and Will meets the fam. Tessa, Sara's sister, is back and pregnant, and as hilarious as ever. As is Cathy, Sara'a mom.

So, Sara and Will are bonding, but Will is still married to Angie. *sigh*

What's Lena done this time, you ask? Well, nothing so disgusting as what she did during Beyond Reach, but definitely sloppy and negligent.

This time she gets the apartment number wrong and mistakes the resident for an intruder. This causes a chain of events including the stabbing of Lena's partner, and the suicide of the (wrong) suspect in Lena's custody.

It's a complete cluster.

Triptych, Karin Slaughter

If I only had one word to describe this book it would be "lonely."

Everyone is just so damn lonely.

This is the first book of the Will Trent series. Now, I mentioned in my review for Beyond Reach we were leaving the Grant County series for a bit. This is why. See, Slaughter merged Grant County into Will Trent, but not until the 3rd book of the Trent series. So, I have a bit of catching up to do before we get more news about the Grant County folk. I'm not sure if there will be any more Grant County only books, to be honest. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

So, a triptych is one of those art pieces that's in 3 panels. Likewise, this book is written in three parts, from 3 points of view. We don't get into Will's head until the 3rd part actually.

The first part is that of a cop who seems perilously close to burnout. He doesn't seem to care much about the job - and a police work is not the kind of thing people do for the money. And his home life is pretty much a shambles. He and his wife can't stand each other and their son is stressing them and their bank accounts out due to his special needs.

Then there's John - he gets part 2. Man, his loneliness seriously kills you. He was arrested and convicted of rape and murder when he was 15. Sentenced as an adult. At 16 he was thrown into a prison where he was fresh meat. He's out on parole now and his life is pretty shitty. He got his college degree in prison, but the best job he can get is a car wash. His sister can't stand the sight of him. And he lives in constant fear of being sent back. That's not even taking into account what a bastard his father is.

Beyond Reach, Karin Slaughter

Ok, kids, we're doing this one a little differently.

I give a general spoiler warning in the blog intro/description, but I still try to be conscientious of what I give away. I only usually call them out in my reviews if they're pretty obvious and I'm being facetious.

However, as I also say in my review, these aren't meant to be a synopsis of the book, but I do have to give some sort of run down in order to make the parts I want to talk about make sense.

But, in order to discuss this amazeballs book honestly, I need to reveal a huge spoiler.

Which brings me to the different part. Normally, I put the page break in mostly for space and try to place it where it makes you want to read the rest of the review. Because of this major spoiler, I'm placing the break after this intro.

This really was a great book (with and without spoilers), and I absolutely would tell you to read this and the whole Grant County series (in order). But, if you're not like me and a major spoiler ruins it for you, makes you want to not read something, do yourself a favor: Read this book, then come back and read my review.

If not....keep reading....if you dare...