Customer Reviews

Faithless (Grant County)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Medical examiner Sara Linton has had an uneasy relationship with her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, for years. In spite of their differences, Sara and Jeffrey have never stopped loving one another. Now, the two are taking tentative steps towards a reconciliation, but obstacles still remain. Lena Adams is a detective who works under Jeffrey's supervision, and she is one messed up woman. Although Lena is a good cop, much to her secret shame, she is also a human punching bag for her abusive and cruel boyfriend. Lena's personal problems have a way of interfering with her work, and Jeffrey is losing patience with her. Jeffrey, Sara, and Lena do not have the luxury of concentrating on themselves for very long. Much to his shock, Jeffrey literally stumbles on the grave of a young woman named Abby who may have been buried alive. His investigation brings him into contact with a strange family of religious fanatics who are harboring dark secrets.

"Faithless" is an uneven effort by Karin Slaughter. I have been following Jeffrey, Sara, and Lena for some time, and I admire their complexity, sensitivity, and vulnerability. These are flawed people, who are sometimes jealous, insecure, impetuous, and unforgiving. They are also caring individuals who have compassion for others. Their imperfections, as well as their strengths, endear these characters to us, and we hope that someday they will find peace of mind.

The mystery, alas, is the weakest element in the book. It involves a closely knit group of people who attend church, quote the Bible frequently, and run a prosperous soybean farm. They also routinely take in miscreants, hoping that their exposure to religion and good works will inspire them to change their ways. When a second girl disappears without a trace, Jeffrey fears that she may have met the same fate as Abby. He racks his brain for some clue that will break the case. Who killed Abby--a stranger, a member of her family, or perhaps an ex-criminal?

Another subplot involves a battered woman named Terri, whose brutal husband seems likely to kill her someday. Like Lena, Terri refuses to turn her abuser over to the police. Slaughter effectively explores the tragic scenario of women with low self-esteem who think that they "deserve" to be beaten by their lovers and husbands. Unfortunately, as the book progresses, it loses some of its momentum, and the convoluted conclusion is both melodramatic and far-fetched. Still, I applaud Slaughter for not tying up all of the loose ends neatly; she leaves some plot lines unresolved, perhaps in preparation for the next installment in the series. Although "Faithless" is not a first-rate mystery, the lead characters are so charismatic that we are willing to stick with them in order to find out how they resolve their problems.

Over the course of four fine novels, Karin Slaughter has created a mythos involving Grant County, Georgia, a rural area whose soil seems steeped in dark and deadly acts. While the primary character of these books ostensibly has been county medical examiner Sara Linton, it is Jeffrey Tolliver, Linton's ex-husband and occasional lover, who is the prime motivator of FAITHLESS, Slaughter's latest effort.

Tolliver is an extremely interesting character, a not-entirely likable individual who nonetheless is possessed with a self-assuredness that ultimately holds him in good stead during periods of difficulty that are usually of his own making. As the police chief of Grant County, Tolliver and Linton have been thrown together professionally even when at odds personally. So it is ironic that at the beginning of FAITHLESS, when Tolliver is in the process of capsizing another attempted reconciliation, he and Linton should stumble, literally, upon a crime scene involving the body of a young woman who apparently has been buried alive.

The search for the victim's identity leads Tolliver to a family living in isolation on a farm that does charitable work involving ex-convicts and has strongly fundamentalist Christian beliefs. Tolliver and Lena Adams, one of Tolliver's officers, are somewhat put off by the traditional values of the victim's family, but are also professional enough to realize that their philosophical differences with the family cannot be permitted to cloud their investigative judgment.

Yet there are a number of suspects among the family, and their natural reclusiveness and distrust of strangers merely add to the suspicion of the authorities that all is not right. When another disappearance is connected to the family, it becomes clear that plenty is not right. Ultimately it is the motivation of the murderer that uncovers his or her identity, as FAITHLESS moves steadily toward a cataclysmic climax.

FAITHLESS may well be the most ambitious of Slaughter's works to date. While the search for the young woman's identity and her murderer is its primary plot vehicle, this is a work driven as much by its characters as by events. Tolliver, Linton and Adams are tragically, almost fatally, flawed, yet continue to rise above their problems and, if not always triumph, at least battle to a draw. This is particularly true of Adams, who is a roiling mass of contradictions, perhaps the most noteworthy being that she is a police officer in an abusive relationship. Her problems are highlighted when she encounters, in both a professional and personal capacity, another woman in similar straits who she is called upon to help --- even though Adams cannot help herself.

Domestic abuse isn't the only topic that Slaughter explores here. Issues such as abortion, fundamentalist Christianity, and traditionalism dip and swirl throughout the novel. Her treatment of these issues, and others, is extremely evenhanded, with all points of view presented with equal fervor and with the author not taking any particular side, either implicitly or explicitly. As a result, the exploration of these issues adds to, rather than detracts from, the plotline. Slaughter's primary focus is on the characters, all of whom are idiosyncratic in their own way.

A familiarity with the earlier Grant County novels is helpful but ultimately not necessary to the reader's enjoyment of FAITHLESS. Slaughter does an excellent job of bringing new readers into the series. Certainly, however, it will be almost impossible for first-time readers of Slaughter to resist visiting earlier volumes while waiting in anticipation for the next. Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Dr. Sara Linton is a pediatrician, and part-time medical examiner for Grant County. Her ex-husband/fiancé, depending on the circumstances, is Jeffrey Tolliver the Police Chief for Grant County. Lena Adams valiantly worked her way up the ladder to become a police detective. Each main character is uniquely vulnerable. You feel that candor when they relate to one another whether on the job; with family; or loved ones. Sara and Jeffrey literally stumble upon the buried body of Abby Bennett. The case leads them to her uncle, the Reverend Lev Ward and Abby's extended family. Besides running their own church; the family also runs the Holy Grown farm with the help of ex-convicts. Tensions run high when more people are killed and Jeffrey and Sara discover the culprit is using cyanide as a weapon. Lena tries to help Terri Stanley leave her abusive husband while trying to fight the ghosts of her own past. Pay attention to the different relationships because the multiple storylines are quickly tied together in the end. Great characters make this mystery an enjoyable read.

The title to this novel by Karin Slaughter, Faithless, actually applies to many of the story lines that run through it. The main characters, in an on-again, off-again relationship, are Sarah and Jeffrey. Do they have faith in their future together and can they overcome the obstacles placed in their path.
Lena, a young detective has many demons in her past, now she has one in her future. Does she have the strength and faith in herself to choose the future that will be best for her, leaving the dark things behind?
All these story lines circle the mystery of a murdered girl, buried alive and left to die. She comes from a fundamentalist family who runs a farm that takes in the troubled and homeless in order to give them a new start.
When another murdered girl turns up, everyone realizes that the death clock is ticking. While the characters have been developed through out a series of books, each story reveals more of them to us. While they all battle there own personal demons, they know that somewhere nearby, a young girl will be killed unless they can figure out who is behind these horrible murders.
Karin Slaughter crafts her novels well, just enough emotion to draw the characters close, enough horror to keep you on the razor's edge and the perfect touch of "reality" to keep you wondering. This combination of love, betrayal, fear and hope, trust and doubt all combine for another good Slaughter novel.

I think a lot of time was spent on the characters development and personal issues. Not enough time was spent on the thriller/mystery/suspense and what time was spent on it seemed to be in the last of the book. I hope the next in this series gets back to the police procedural work, solving the mystery and less time spent on issues with relationships, etc.

The first of Slaughter's books I've read and have to say it had me gripped...especially as it moved towards the end. I liked the characters and their relationships and enjoyed how they weren't perfect, Lena (the assisting detective) making a slip up due to her personal problems was very believable, as was the struggling relationship between Jeffrey and Sara.
The post mortums were described in a fair amount of detail and yet I didn't find them unnecessarily gory...just fascinating.

The story was set in Georgia and made a refreshing change from thrillers set in major cities. Yet I never got the feeling it was in the 'outback' either.
I liked the way the auther portrayed the church community that owned the soy bean farm. Although we were encouraged to think of them as wacky, religious nuts at first, I felt that we warmed towards them as the book went on (well some of them!) and the fact that Sara's sister was 'ordinary' yet enjoyed going to the church was a nice positive note to contrast with how we were encouraged to think about 'weird people who helped ex cons'at the beginning.

I shall be looking out for more of Karin Slaughters work.

This is the first Slaughter that I have read, and at first I doubted whether another crime series with a female coroner as a leading lady - like Cornwell and Reichs - could offer anything new. But it does.... The crimes in this novel and the previous 4 in the series might be less complex than Cornwell and Reichs, but they fit the small town setting where normal people are victims of acts of violence that they didn't see coming and where 'the bad guy' is often someone closer to home than expected. What makes this and Slaughter's other books worth reading, are her very realistic descriptions of the experiences of the professional and personal lifes of her sympathetic leading characters.

The main mystery of Faithless involves the body of a religious young woman, discovered in a box in which she'd been buried alive in a Georgia forest. But this basic story is adorned with a variety of subplots, sideplots and backstories.

There is the story of Sara, the small town pediatrician and medical examiner, and her on-and-off relationship with Police Chief Jeffrey. There is Detective Lena, who is dealing with ghosts, and domestic abuse. There are all the religious farm workers way out in the edges of the county.

Personal issues interfere with pressing current questions, and the truth that should be obvious is elusive when nothing is quite what it seems. Slaughter manages to propel her plot while taking lots of different characters on different paths. Sometimes the story seemed to sag and falter, but in the end she drives it forward.

This book is dark; I've heard comparisons to Kay Scarpetta, and I would agree. Her "good guy" characters are complex and likeable, and the bad guys are really awful and two-faced, not to mention dangerous. I can't wait to read the other books in this series. Slaughter is a talented writer.

This is another of Ms. Slaughter's books from the Georgia woods where Sara Linton and her ex-husband are involved in yet another murder mystery. In this book the story revolves around a very strange fundamentalist religion that has some particularly gruesome habits.

This is quite possibly the best book in the series. It has been selected by the at least five major book clubs as a main or alternate selection.

The real strength of Mrs. Slaughter's books is the character development she gives. You come away from her books thinking that you really know something about the people she creates, why they do what they do, who they are inside. It makes for a very good read.

Dr. Sara Linton and Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver are carrying a lot of emotional baggage. These ex-spouses work together in solving crimes--mostly gory, brutal, unspeakable crimes. The latest is a young girl found buried, presumably, alive. There's a pipe protruding from her burial place which should have provided air, but an autopsy reveals that the young girl who happens to be a member of a religious cult did not suffocate but was killed by cyanide, which was poured down the breathing tube.

Further investigation reveals that the cult welcomes ex-cons who apparently haven't been rehabilitated. This book is not for the weak of heart. There are very graphic descriptions of murder victims. There is a subplot on domestic violence which is very revealing and it may be difficult for the reader to comprehend how a seemingly rational woman would allow herself to be continually victimized.

The relationship between the Sara and Jeffrey remains unresolved, leaving room for at least a couple more books revolving around the strained relationship between this couple.

I enjoy Slaughter's writing style and her willingness to take the reader out of his/her comfort zone while she delivers blow after blow of gut wrenching horrors that humans--in this case--in the name of God--do unto each other.