Blindsighted [Paperback]

Karin Slaughter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2002

The sleepy town of Heartsdale is jolted into panic when Sara Linton, pediatrician and medical examiner, finds Sibyl Adams, a young college professor, horribly murdered in the local diner. Police chief Jeffrey Tolliver then finds a second victim crucified and recognises the work of a serial killer.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Blindsighted (book one of an anticipated three featuring Grant County, Georgia, pediatrician and coroner Dr. Sara Linton), first-time novelist Karin Slaughter comes out swinging in true medical examiner fashion. That is to say, covered with blood from the get-go.

Without warning, the body jerked violently, pitching forward and slamming Sara onto the floor. Blood spread out around both of them, and Sara instinctively clawed to get out from under the convulsing woman. With her feet and hands she groped for some kind of purchase on the slick bathroom floor. Finally, Sara managed to slide out from underneath her. She turned Sibyl over, cradling her head, trying to help her through the convulsions. Suddenly, the jerking stopped.

Sibyl is, or was, Sibyl Adams, a college professor who had the misfortune of being drugged, savagely raped, slashed, and left for dead in the toilet of the local diner, to be coincidentally discovered by Sara Linton. Coincidences don't stop there, and neither do the rapes and murders. The next is, unimaginably, still more gruesome than the first and it, too, is discovered by Dr. Linton. Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver is Sara's ex-husband, and mercurial detective Lena Adams, another major player in the ensuing drama, was Sibyl's twin sister.

And the monster behind these increasingly more depraved acts? Suspects abound, from the diner's jack-of-all-trades, Will Harris, to Victim No. 2's boyfriend, to Jack Allen Wright who, a dozen years prior, raped Dr. Linton (that rape had been a secret until now). There are other possibilities, naturally, and it soon becomes apparent that Sara's an intended target.

A graduate of the Patricia Cornwell school of mayhem and gore, Slaughter has faithfully stitched together a fast, engaging, and diverting read complete with a strong-yet-vulnerable heroine. Characters are nicely if somewhat obviously drawn, the plot is inventive, and the narrative's pacing quickens the pulse straight to the cliff-hanging denouement. And really, what more can you ask of an ME thriller? --Michael Hudson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Billed as "Thomas Harris Meets Patricia Cornwell" and heralded by much advance hoopla in industry magazines, this long-anticipated launching of a scheduled three-book series featuring an attractive Georgia university town pediatrician-coroner marks the debut of a promising young author, but ultimately disappoints, partly due to overly-exorbitant pre-publishing claims. As Dr. Sara Linton leaves her pediatric clinic to meet her 33-year-old younger sister for lunch at a campus eatery, she receives a postcard picturing Atlanta's Emory University, where she interned. The enigmatic biblical message reads, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" At the diner, she goes to the restroom and discovers a young blind university professor who has been raped and brutally slashed with a knife. Too late to save her, Sara calls her ex-husband police chief, who, coincidentally, employs the victim's twin sister, Lena, as a detective. The trail quickly leads to a missing co-ed, and suspicion falls upon her druggie boyfriend. The co-ed is found raped, heavily drugged with belladonna and stretched out nude as if crucified on the hood of Sara's car in the hospital parking lot. Soon after, Lena is abducted by the killer. Fighting her attraction to her ex, Sara begins to suspect the rape-murders are tied to her own rape in the Emory parking lot 12 years ago. At the end, little suspense remains. Sara Linton is no Kay Scarpetta and her villain is a mere shadow of the complex, chilling Hannibal Lecter, but forgiving inept, trivia-cluttered dialogue and manifest lack of firsthand fluency in the medical arena the offbeat characters and setting are engaging enough to leave readers awaiting a sequel. (Sept. 17)Forecast: The hype including a blurb from George Pelecanos plus major advertising and a 5-city author tour should sell this early on, but the uneven execution may weaken demand for Slaughter's next book. Blindsighted is an alternate selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Doubleday Book Club and the Mystery Guild, and foreign rights have been sold in Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Denmark and Norway.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Random House (October 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099421771
• ISBN-13: 978-0099421771
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.3 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (136 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #614,795 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

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great late-night reading, July 7, 2002

By 

mellion108 (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Blindsighted: A Novel (Dr. Sara Linton) (Hardcover)

I picked up Blindsighted on a whim. The cover blurbs sounded interesting, and I love to read a good, gory, mystery. This one does not disappoint.

Karin Slaughter--a wonderful name for a crime/mystery writer--sets her novel in a small town in Georgia. Nothing much happens in Heartsdale, and the local pediatrician, Sara Linton, also works as the coroner. Sara meets her younger sister for lunch at the local diner one afternoon and stumbles upon a grisly scene. The twin sister of a local detective has been viciously attacked, mutilated, and raped. It's not long before another victim surfaces, and Sara works along with her ex-husband who also happens to be the Chief of Police to try to track down this sick killer. All the while, Sara has her own tortured past as well as her strained relationship with her ex-husband to deal with. In this small town where everyone knows everyone else, who could possibly be the twisted rapist murderer?

Slaughter seems to have done her research for this novel. The medical information alone is quite interesting, and the dialogue and characters are believable. The plot is a bit easy to figure out early on in the novel, but I think it's probably pretty difficult to write a totally original novel dealing with serial killers in this day and age. Overall, I enjoyed the story. It's well written, and it's a quick read that's perfect for the summer.

60 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Rather upsetting, June 16, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Blindsighted (Grant County) (Mass Market Paperback)

Let me start by stating that (1) I have never felt compelled to write a review on here before or "warn" others about a book, and (2) I ADORE mystery/suspense-type novels, including Patricia Cornwell, James Patterson, Mary Higgins Clark, Tami Hoag, the whole lot.

This book, while a decent mystery/suspense novel, goes much to far with the graphic rape scenes. It terrified me, particularly with its references to the rapist pulling out the women's teeth to "rape their faces," and other such graphic detailings. I had nightmares about it, and for some reason, it's all I can think about when I go to the dentist (I'm not kidding). I feel pretty traumatized just by READING it, and I don't really feel like I can talk to anyone else about it, given how gruesome it is. It's almost as if I've lived the rape and am afraid of my own "dirty little secret"; it was that upsetting for me. My mother and I usually share books, but I can't stand the idea of having her read this, and having her haunted by such awful visions as well. So, I'm throwing it away.

I've never been unable to stomach a book before-- graphic detailings of corpses has never bothered me. But this one crossed the line for me. I just wanted to warn others, so they know about the graphic scenes going in.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unexpected Treat, December 1, 2001

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blindsighted: A Novel (Dr. Sara Linton) (Hardcover)

What initially attracted me to "Blindsighted" was the violence of its beginning. Even in a genre noted for the horrific, this tale wastes no time in firing with both barrels as Sara Linton, coroner of a sleepy, conservative Southern town enters a diner's restroom to discover the aftermath of a bloody and brutal attack on a local college professor. The woman dies in Sara's arms, and the subsequent autopsy reveals a crime almost baroque in its complex horror.

Sara's role forces her to deal with her ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver. This unwilling partnership must confront its own issues while trying to deal with a second murder, even more gruesome than the first. Also part of the hunt is Detective Lena Adams, sister of the first victim. Torn by her own grief and a sense of powerlessness, the crimes seem to eat away at her, stretching her ability to retain control of her personal and professional life. The three find that they are dealing with a deranged serial killer that not only tortures and molests his victims, but then leaves them to be found at the edge of death. For Sara the deaths seem to be an impossible message from the past.

Each of the players, including the invisible killer, has some defect or injury which makes them vulnerable. As the lens shifts back and forth from Sara to Jeffrey, then to Lena, then back again, it is the fine detail of their personalities as much as the complex forensic work that first hides and then finally reveals the roots of the killer's motivation. Much of what makes "Blindsighted" work is the adeptness with which Karin Slaughter combines a complex and fast paced plot with unusually well developed main characters. Sara Linton, Jeffrey Tolliver, and Lena Tolliver are all given loving attention. If you think this means that some of the minor characters are too sketchy, you will be much surprised.

Wherever you look, this is a detail rich story. It lives up to it's billing as a Southern mystery story, not simply by hiding behind stereotypes, but in allowing the reader to experience the conflicts that lie under the surface of a rural South that is only steps away from it's urban counterpart. Nor are these factors peripheral to the tale. It is remarkable to encounter a first novel where the author as conscious of the part each fragment will play in the whole as is Karen Slaughter. While nothing is ever perfect, there is nothing here that is amateurish. This is something fresh and original for those who thought that the serial killer was past its peak.