Broken

Broken (Grant County, #7)by Karin Slaughter

A woman's corpse is discovered in the waters of Lake Grant, and a note is found which seems to point to suicide – but Sara Linton has never been a woman to settle for obvious solutions. The principal suspect in the case has requested – desperately -- to be able to speak to Sara -- but when she turns up at his cell in the local police station, the suspect, Tommy Braham (whom she had known as a boy), is unable to speak to her. Tommy is dead; he has been savagely beaten, and his wrists have been cut. Scrawled in blood on the cell wall is a poignant message: ‘Not me’. Sara, personally involved now, is distrustful of Lena Adams the detective in charge, so she gets in touch with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and asks (as she has done before) for the help of Special Agent Will Trent (Karin Slaughter readers will be well aware of the intriguing relationship between these two). The duo begins to suspect that a murderer enjoys the covert protection of the close-mouthed inhabitants of Grant County, who have fashioned a skein of non-communication. But, as the Bard observed, murder will out... (goodreads.com)

Holy cow, there are 7 books in this series already? I mean, this was number 7 and I picked it up at BEA last May (signed, yay!) I didn't realize there were so many and I didn't realize that I only missed reading ONE of them! In fact, I have read 7 books by Slaughter because I have also read Triptych which stars Agent Will Trent, who shows up in Broken so I think it's a side-series. There's a name for that, right? Parallel series maybe?Anyways, I have been suffering from the Too Many Books To Read So I Don't Know What to Read problem lately. I have bookmarks in about 5 books right now after having started and stopped them because they weren't what I was looking for at the time. I am a little tired of paranormal/urban fantasy stuff and I am out of folk-tale/fantasy books that I was enjoying. After about a week of restless book limbo I suddenly realized I hadn't read Karin Slaughter's book from BEA that I was so excited to get!It's been a while since I have read a Slaughter novel so I was both delighted and surprised when I recognized the characters and references to past books. Whereas each Grant County suspense is it's own story there is a continuity with the characters that crops up. I wouldn't say you HAD to read them in order, but you might want to in order to be less confused at to why someone hates someone else with such a passion (ie: Sara and Lena).Unlike Iris Johansen's Eve Duncan series, which seems to be the same story over and over, I find that Karin Slaughter's Grant County series to be different with each story. The characters are set and there's not an element of romance squished in the pages of the thriller. I sort of think of it closer to J. D. Robb's In Death series, but with a lot less humour.I wasn't nearly as creeped out by the suspense/mystery in this story as I have been in the past. I sort of felt like Broken was more about character development than it was about the mystery so it was a little slow for me, however I couldn't put it down I was hooked into needing to know why these people were killed and what was going on.Reading Broken made me realize how much I missed reading Karin Slaughter's books. Some reason in my mind I had chalked them up to being as frustrating and stale as the Iris Johansen books, but they aren't. I shall now put book #6 on my watch list for used books because I'd like to see what I might have missed in the series. And of course I will make sure to pick up book 8 (if there is one) when it's out in paperback.Grant County series

1. Blindsighted
2. Kisscut
3. A Faint Cold Fear
4. Indelible
5. Faithless
6. Beyond Reach - have not read :(
7. Broken