Customer Reviews

Fractured

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In her second book featuring Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Slaughter weaves a lean, taut tale that far surpasses the previous work featuring Trent -- Triptych -- and introduces a new character in Faith Mitchell; a tough, savvy, smart and aggressive cop who seems destined to continue into future works as Trent's partner.

Slaughter has a real talent for creating fully realized three-dimensional characters, with all the flaws and gifts that make each of them real and believable.

In this case, Trent's battle with dyslexia is explored in depth, and brings a new twist to the genre that is original and inventive, and used to great effect throughout.

It never occurred to me until I started writing this review, but Slaughter made an interesting decision in naming her characters, because in essence, this novel boils down to:

Can Will and Faith defeat Evil?

Karin Slaughter's latest release, Fractured is completely deserving of the acclaim and high praises it has received. Abigail Campano arrives home to discover her door unlocked and shattered glass around her feet. Her first response is fear for the well being of her daughter, Emma. As she rushes upstairs, she comes face to face with the battered and bloody body of her daughter and a man kneeling over her body with a knife in his hand. Pure adrenaline and rage consumes Abigail and she strangles the man to death. Enter Will Trent, member of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Will struggles with the crime scene and determines that the brutalized body upstairs does not belong to Emma Campano, but to her best friend Kayla, and the murdered man Abigail strangled with her bare hands was actually Emma's boyfriend, whose attempt to save Emma and Kayla got him killed. The shift from the murder to the reality of the kidnapping of Emma, forces Will to pair up with Atlanta officer Faith Mitchell. Running against the clock and without any suspects or leads, Will and Faith must work together to find Emma and catch a killer. Fractured is filled with plot twists and heart pounding intensity. Beyond Karin Slaughter's ability to provide her readers with an excellent storyline and superb mystery, she is able to delve into the characters emotions and backgrounds so deeply that readers feel they know these men and women. The return of our favorites like Will and his boss Amanda paired with new intriguing characters like Faith, Abigail and the monstrous villains will surly please its audience. Fractured is by far one of Slaughter's best works, she gives her readers everything and them some more. Valerie Jones mrsvaljones@netzero.net

i love these characters and always buy the books as soon as they come out i have never been dissapointed

Karin Slaughter returns to the location and brings back characters from her earlier novel, "Triptych," the location being Atlanta, Georgia. Will Trent, 6'3 and thirty-six years old, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, is called to the scene in an upscale enclave where two dead bodies are found. A 19-year-old boy and 17-year-old girl are found murdered, the young woman having been savagely stabbed and beaten and the boy stabbed and strangled to death, the latter apparently strangled at the hands of Abigail Campano, the woman in whose home---mansion, really---the bodies have been found. In addition to the two deaths, it appears that another young girl has been kidnapped. Surprisingly, Will's boss, Amanda Wagner, deputy director of the special criminal apprehension team, has assigned a young city cop, Faith Mitchell, to work the case with him. [Faith, at 33 and with an 18-year-old son, knows something about teenage angst [both her son's and her own at 14 when she became pregnant with him while in high school.] Another character to whom we are introduced is Angie, a former vice cop with a rep for promiscuity, to whom, against all odds, Will is now engaged.

Faith's working with Will is fraught with complications: Six months earlier Will had been asked to investigate the APD narcotics squad, which "had resulted in the firing of six Atlanta police detectives and forced the early retirement of one of the city's highest-ranking officers. The cases were good --- the cops were skimming cash off of narcotics busts --- but nobody liked a stranger cleaning their house, and Will had not exactly made friends during the course of the investigation." And now Faith is asked to work with the man who had helped force her mother off the job.

Will and Paul Campano, Abigail's husband, have a history going back nearly three decades, when they were both in the Atlanta Children's Home [as was Angie]. Paul was adopted at the age of 12, while Will remained in his soul-stifling environs until eighteen, when the law mandated he leave, however ill-prepared he may have been for that eventuality. The circumstances of their childhood have had a profound effect on all of them, as has Will's learning disability, which he takes great pains to hide. He and Faith are well-drawn protagonists, and this reader looks forward to reading the next book in what is hoped will be a continuing series.

The book is much more than a police procedural. One thing it is not, as one might expect it might be, is uniformly somber, the author's humor often evident. A high level of suspense is maintained throughout as the detectives work the clues, hoping that they are in time to prevent the loss of yet another young life. Well written and fast-paced, the book is highly recommended.

This is a first Karin Slaughter book for me, and only after I finished it did I realize that this was book #2 in a series (Triptych being the 1st). Honestly, I do not think it matters much whether you've read the first book. This one, alone, was enjoyable. The audio book reader was good.

The story starts out in an upper class neighborhood, a girl has been savagely murdered. In the hallway, her horrified mother stands in shattered glass, having just killed her daughter's attacker. But all is not as it appears on the surface. The body count mounting and the local community is in terror, as the killer is proving almost impossible to track down.

This book kept my interest and had some unexpected twists along the way. I plan to read more books by Slaughter in the future.

Fractured, a story about a murder/kidnapping/sex abuse case, is a police procedural concerned primarily with the relationship between the two detectives assigned to the horrific crime. Will Trent, a loner who was raised in an orphanage with the father of one of the victims. Faith Mitchell, the 30-something mother of a college freshman. Both relationship-challenged, both with significant personal issues, both intensely private about their thoughts and feelings. As they struggle to find the perpetrators, they must also struggle to work out an effective professional partnership.

The plot line is a solid one, but in solving the mystery, more reliance is placed upon coincidence than policing or evidence. It also bogged down in the middle sections, and the heavy repetition of some of the themes (dyslexia and the boorishness of the father, for instance) grew tiresome. But the author is skilled at writing dialogue and creating tension and drama without resorting to histrionics. With Fracture, she has created two new, sympathetic characters who have plenty of room to develop.

I admit to having read only her first (Blindsighted?) and then this one, purchased in desperation at an airport kiosk. The author seems obsessed with sexual grotesqueness and I am not generally very squeamish. After reading Fractured, I have to wonder if she just does not like men. There is not one likable, admirable, or even sympathetic male in the entire book. They are either manipulative, bullying, stupid, or, in the case of the male detective, so damaged psychically that they cannot function believably. And he is terrified by women, too. There were too many characters with similar names (Abigail the mother, Gail the other mother, Amanda the detective and Faith).
I won't be so desperate the next time I am in the airport. This author is way over-rated.

Fractured was my first Karin Slaughter novel, and it won't be my last. Slaughter is an obvious master of the whodunnit, and her richly wrought characters really drew me in. As soon as I finished this book, I went straight to A Faint Cold Fear, which also featured an intriguing plot and characters you could really get into. Still, there's definitely something special about the characters of Will and Faith from Fractured. In both books, Karin Slaughter demonstrates a gift for bringing to life unique characters who struggle to remain on a path of goodness, despite their deep flaws and troubled pasts. Also worth mentioning is the setting of Georgia -- it adds a nice, subtle ambiance to her tales.

A wealthy mother interrupts what appears to be the brutal homicide of her daughter and kills the apparent perpetrator. Soon it is discovered that the dead girl is actually the daughter's best friend and the suspected perpetrator is actually an innocent party. The daughter is missing and the chase is on. GBI Investigator Will Trent and Atlanta Police detective Faith Mitchell are paired for the hunt.

Although I figured out "who done it" quite early on, the story is well structured and interesting to read. Abigail, the mother of the kidnapped girl, is fairly complex although her husband, a state orphanage bully cum multimillionaire, is somewhat cliched. Trent, a dyslexic product of the state foster care system and Faith, a single mother the result of a teen pregnancy, struggle to keep their private demons at bay while saving a young girl.

All in all, this is a riveting read. The boorish police are a bit too broadly drawn and the segment about the purloined evidence is ridiculous and out of character for Mitchell and Trent. While strong, intelligent female characters are appreciated, I did think that the parallels of all the daddy's girls, ie doting dads, long suffering moms whose contributions are appreciated at long last,a bit heavy handed. All the "a" names ...Amanda, Abigail, Angie and Andy...were annoying and occasionally confusing. The editors of this book might want to brush up on the proper usage of she and her. I think the story would be better without Trent's slutty girlfriend but his dog is cute. However, it is well written and well plotted and fun to read.

After reading Triptych, featuring dislexic Georgia Bureau of Investigations agent Will Trent, I moved on to Fractured. In this book, Will Trent is called to the scene of a brutal murder of a young girl. The girl's parents are the rich and powerful Camponos. Will Trent quickly discovers that the crime scene was analyzed incorrecty by the Atlanta PD and that another girl may have been kidnapped and taken from the scene.

After a fast paced, thrilling opening, the book transitions into a standard police procedural that spans three days. Will Trent is forced to work with Faith Mitchell, a 33 year old detective with an 18 year old son. Faith hates Will because, six months ago, Will forced Faith's mom to retire from the police because of possible corruption. After slowing the pace down, Slaughter brings the characters to the forefront. Will is constantly battling his low self esteem and his inability to read correctly. Faith is battling her anger towards Will and her anger at being forced to do the dirty work. Also, Abby Campano, the mother of one of the possible victims, struggles to make it to the next hour while wondering if her daughter is still alive, and if she is, what kind of shape she his in. Action goes from the Georgia Tech campus to the campus of a private high school full of rich kids.

Slaughter kept the pages turning as she filled each page with incredible detail and each character with realistic hopes, flaws and fears. This is much more than a standard police procedural. Slaughter creates a vivid world in which the main character, Will Trent, is far from perfect. I hope to read more novels featuring Trent in the future.