Indelible. Karin Slaughter [Paperback]

Karin Slaughter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2005

'"Indelible" is a salutary reminder that Slaughter is one of the most riveting writers in the field today' - "Sunday Express". When medical examiner Sara Linton and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver take a trip away from the small town of Heartsdale - an escape from all the pressures which complicate their relationship - it should be a straightforward weekend at the beach. But they decide to take a detour via Jeffrey's hometown and things go violently wrong when Jeffrey's best friend Robert shoots dead an intruder who breaks into his house. Jeffrey and Sara are first on the scene and Jeffrey's keen to clear his friend's name, but for Sara things aren't so simple. The sear marks around the bullet-hole don't tally with Robert's story. Robert's wife, Jessie, is incoherent and confused. And when it seems that Jeffrey has altered the crime scene, Sara no longer knows who to trust. Twelve years later, Sara and Jeffrey are caught up in a shockingly brutal attack which threatens to destroy both their lives. But they're not random victims. They've been targeted. And it seems the past is catching up with both of them.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Medical examiner Sara Linton and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver make their fourth appearance in this riveting new back-and-forth thriller that grounds a brutal attack by two young men on the Grant County, Georgia police department in a twelve-year-old Alabama murder case that occurred while Sara and Jeffrey were just beginning their tumultuous romance. En route to a beach vacation shortly after they meet, the couple takes a detour to the small town where Jeffrey grew up and began his law enforcement career. But their carefree holiday is interrupted when his best friend from childhood, a fellow cop, is charged with murder after killing a man who broke into his house. Despite his subsequent confession, Jeffrey believes there’s more to the story than Robert is telling him, and when the skeleton of a young woman with whom both Robert and Tolliver were once involved is discovered in a secret cave only they knew about, and Robert admits to her murder too, Tolliver must again confront a past he thought he had long since put behind him.

Slaughter unravels a convoluted story deftly and smoothly as the action moves between those long-ago events and the siege of the police station by two young men who are determined to make Jeffrey pay for a crime they believe he committed. Threatening to kill whoever stands between them and their target--including eight children on a school field trip at the station house when the bloody siege begins--they execute a deputy they mistakenly believe is Tolliver. Skillfully blending past and present events and illuminating the equally convoluted relationship between Sara and Jeffrey (who have married and divorced in the intervening years) without interrupting the breathtaking pace of the action or dropping a beat, Slaughter takes this series to a new level of excellence. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Complex characters with credible relationships underpin this gripping prequel to Slaughter's Blindsighted (2001). Georgia pediatrician/medical examiner Sara Linton is visiting her ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, when two malevolent strangers, hauntingly familiar to Sara, pull out guns at the station house, where several schoolchildren are on a class trip, and bloody mayhem ensues. The action shifts to the past, when new lovers Sara and Jeffrey detour to his hometown on their way to a beach weekend. A nostalgic tour of Jeffrey's youth turns sinister as buried secrets and injustices slowly come to light. An ugly midnight encounter with Jeffrey's sloshed mother sends Sara outside in time to hear gunshots from the neighboring house of Jeffrey's childhood friend Robert, a cop, who's found bleeding, gun in hand, across the bedroom from his dead victim. Sara is grateful to perform the autopsy, knowing there's more than meets the eye in this puzzling crime scene. The couple's budding romance is put to the test as Sara tries to coax answers from tight-lipped Jeffrey, whose silence and suspicious actions nourish her doubts. Slaughter's tightly disciplined rhythm and occasional sly humor keep readers hooked right up to the end.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Arrow Books; New edition edition (July 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099462249
• ISBN-13: 978-0099462248
• Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 1.2 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,352,652 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

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars SUPERIOR READING OF FAST PACED SUSPENSE, August 25, 2004

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Indelible CD (Grant County) (Audio CD)

There's nothing much more frightening than a hostage situation. Leave it to Karin Slaughter (who has been compared to Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs) to open her latest Grant County crime opus with a wide screen scene of blood and carnage.

Two men with guns ablaze have burst into the Georgia police station and shot one officer to death, wounding others. They've taken hostages, among them is Sara Linton, part-time pediatrician and medical examiner. She's come to the station for a conversation with her ex, Jeffrey Tolliver, who is now the police chief. There's no room for talk among in this bloodbath.

Slaughter then pulls a fast one and does a flashback to when Sara and Jeffrey first met, thus creating two story lines. On one hand you have the death struggle between the hostages and two apparently psychotic captors and the blossoming love affair between our two protagonists. A challenge for any reader, but not Broadway and TV actress Becky Ann Baker who segues beautifully between the young Sara and her physical attraction to Jeffrey despite his reputation, and the older, wiser Sara who finds herself in what might be a fatal countdown.

Suspenseful listening!

- Gail Cooke

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good read, but not Slaughter's best., August 3, 2004

By 

Nick G - See all my reviews

This review is from: Indelible: A Novel (Hardcover)

Today began like any other day, until the shooting started.

Medical examiner Sara Linton, tagging along with her lover, police chief Jefferey Tolliver, is at the police station when two young men with masks and guns barge in and start shooting...leaving one officer dead and Jefferey wounded.

As the tense hostage situation builds, Sara begins to unravel the mystery of the two men who hold them captive only to discover their plan is one of revenge based on the sins of the past.

`Indelible' was a good read. I enjoyed the present day plot of the hostage situation, but the alternating chapters of the earlier years plot got in the way of pacing. The two separate plot lines did come together to tie everything up, but I am not a fan of books that alternate plot lines and time periods between chapters and this novel did it throughout. On the plus side there are some genuinely surprising twists and several tense action scenes. Karin Slaughter is a good writer and her dark, gruesome thrillers are some of the more enjoyable to come out over the years, but her newest in not on par with her previous books.

Nick Gonnella

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CAPTIVATING READ from start to finish, July 30, 2004

By 

avidbookreader "Keishon" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Indelible: A Novel (Hardcover)

I think Karin Slaughter is the real deal. She writes believable characters, great dialogue and great suspense. INDELIBLE just proves once again that Slaughter knows how to write a mystery novel and has plenty of surprises in store for the reader. What I enjoy most about Slaughter's novels is that there are always disturbing issues that are in your face and realistic. Implausible? I don't think so. This woman writes about the ugly side of life that many people don't either know about or don't want to face. No matter how graphic or disturbing, her books are captivating reads. I like her voice and she is original and again, the real deal. She deserves blockbuster status for continuing to write and improve with each new book. I applaud you Ms. Slaughter for your consistent characterizations, realistic dialogue and an all around great read. I highly recommend this novel if characterization is important to you as well as realistic dialgoue and realistic plots/actions/scenes. One of the best female suspense writers around. Read her. You won't be disappointed. As for trying to compare her to other established writers - don't. She's in a class all by herself.

Other authors I enjoy: Julia Spencer Fleming, Michael Connelly (who has praised Slaughter as well), Clinton McKinzie and last but not least, Anne Frasier.