Beyond Reach (Grant County Series) [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [MP3 CD]

Karin Slaughter (Author), Joyce Bean (Reader)

Book Description

Series: Grant County Series | Publication Date: July 31, 2007

In a stifling jail cell in a hardscrabble Georgia town, Detective Lena Adams sits in stubborn silence: bruised, angry, and the only suspect in a horrific murder that left a woman incinerated beyond recognition. A hundred miles away, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver has gotten the call that his young detective has been arrested. Jeffrey’s wife, pediatrician and medical examiner Sara Linton, has little patience for Lena or her dramas. Fighting a heartbreaking malpractice suit, struggling to pick up the pieces of a shattered career, the last thing Sara needs is to see Jeffrey playing Lena’s knight in shining armor. Sara cannot guess that within days she herself will be at the center of a bizarre and murderous case. For Lena has fled back to the place where she grew up hard, careening back through the shadows of her past and into a shocking underground world of bigotry and rage. The man who raised her is slowly killing himself with drugs. The man who beguiled - and beat - her is reaching out from prison. And now only Jeffrey and Sara can free Lena from the web of lies, betrayal, and brutality that has trapped her - as this powerhouse of a novel races toward its shattering climax…and a final, unforgettable twist.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. At the start of bestseller Slaughter's bone-chilling sixth thriller in her Grant County, Ga., crime series (after 2005's Faithless), Dr. Sara Linton, the county's resident pediatrician and medical examiner, is mired in a devastating lawsuit, accused by grieving parents of indirectly causing the death of their terminally ill son. Then Sara and her husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, must travel to rural Reese, Ga., where Lena Adams, Jeffrey's often reckless detective, has been injured in an explosion that killed a local woman. Lena's mysterious escape from the hospital plunges her, Sara and Jeffrey into a dangerous web of meth trafficking, white supremacy groups and long-buried family secrets. Expertly shifting back and forth in both time and point of view, Slaughter builds the suspense to a perfect crescendo, connecting every loose plot strand in a devastating and unforgettable climax. With methamphetamine use on the rise in the country, Slaughter's unflinching portrayal of lives ruined by the drug make her latest a timely and unsettling read. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. US Version --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

After producing last year's stand-alone thriller TripTych, Slaughter returns with the sixth entry in the series that has propelled her onto best-seller lists. The Grant County novels, featuring pediatrician/medical examiner Sara Linton, her police chief husband, Jeffrey Tolliver, and Detective Lena Adams, combine suspenseful plots, gritty social realism, and graphic forensic detail. Here Lena returns to the poverty-stricken rural backwater where she was raised to check on her uncle Hank, the tactiturn reformed junkie who raised her after her mother died. What she finds is a town decimated by methamphetamine addiction (including her long sober uncle), with the drug dealing controlled by skinheads and abetted by a corrupt sheriff's department. When she is forced to watch as her former childhood friend and neighbor, who has long battled addiction, is set on fire, she shuts down, convinced that her best recourse is to keep her mouth shut even as the local sheriff tries to get her to talk. That's when Jeffrey gets the call that his detective has been arrested. He and Sara, who is drained from fighting a grueling medical malpractice suit, are immediately drawn into the investigation, which leads to surprising revelations about some of the town's most upstanding citizens. In addition, Slaughter throws in a shocker of an ending that has serious implications for the future of the series. Slaughter's latest page-turner offers both wrenching emotional highs and lows and a gripping plot, but what gives it emotional heft is its unwavering focus on the grim social ills of the rural South. Wilkinson, Joanne --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• MP3 CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD Lib Ed; Library edition (July 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 142333325X
• ISBN-13: 978-1423333258
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (207 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,837,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Karin Slaughter is a New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author. She is a native of Georgia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Low Return on Investment, August 23, 2008

By 

CintiBonnie "bonnie8" (Cincinnati, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Reach: A Novel (Grant County) (Mass Market Paperback)

I purchased this book at the airport as a diversion during a trip. Initially, I was intrigued and it was an easy read. However, as the book progressed, it became unfocused and unrealistic. What was the point of all the attention given to the lawsuit at the beginning of the book? It was never really part of the story and did not adequately explain the transformation of a strong, intelligent woman into a one-dimentional, clingy drone. And, as bodies begin to drop like flies (or, in some cases, get thrown through hotel windows), would no one actually consider bringing in reinforcements to address what is clearly a town out of control? Finally, the ending was more than unsatisfying. It was needlessly depressing and almost felt as though the last 5 pages were written by someone else or had gotten mixed in from another book. Did the author just get tired of writting and decide she had something else she needed to go do? Loyal fans might enjoy this book but anyone looking for a well-written, self-contained story with a logical ending might do well to keep looking. When I consider the time spent reading the book, I don't feel as though there was sufficient return on my investment to have made it worthwhile.

62 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Talk about "Jumping the Shark", September 24, 2007

By 

Mystery Fan (Elmhurst, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Reach (Grant County) (Hardcover)

Like many others who have reviewed this book, I was a great fan of the Grant County series. Like many others, I, too, feel betrayed and feel that the author has no regard for the feelings of the readers she had taken along on this journey for so many books. If she wanted to end the series, then just leave the three main characters alone and go on to something else. To do what she did to one of them, who was the heart and soul of this series, was totally unnecessary. She spoiled the series and took away the pleasure of rereading the earlier books. No more Karin Slaughter for me.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars unoriginal cheap shot, March 24, 2008

By 

Emily Lahr "pdxbooklover" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beyond Reach (Grant County) (Hardcover)

I normally like Karin Slaughter and have enjoyed her other novels, but this one left me feeling cheated and almost angry. As the creator of her characters, Ms Slaughter is certainly entitled to take her stories wherever she may choose, but I felt the ending she chose cheapened her story and was purely for shock value. It also felt copied- Elizabeth George chose the same fate for one of her major characters a few years ago. And Ms George's novel left me feeling the same way as this one- irritated that an author I like so much would end a novel with a tragic event that seems to have been written only to sell more books.