Print List Price:	$9.99
Kindle Price:	$7.99 Save $2.00 (20%)
Sold by:	Random House LLC Price set by seller.

Promotions apply when you purchase

Add an

audiobook with Audible narration for $12.99

Audiobook Price: $25.19

Save: $12.20 (48%)

Read with our free app

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Follow the author

Karin Slaughter

+ Follow

More books from this author

Fallen: A Novel (Will Trent Book 5) Kindle Edition

by Karin Slaughter (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 14,294 ratings

Book 5 of 12: Will Trent

Goodreads Choice Award nominee

See all formats and editions

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A complex, gripping, and deadly serious novel that reflects anew [Karin] Slaughter’s abundant talent.”—The Washington Post

WATCH WILL TRENT ON ABC • “An absolute master . . . Slaughter creates some wonderfully complex and mature female characters, a distinctive achievement in the world of thrillers.”—Chicago Tribune

“You know what we’re here for. Hand it over, and we’ll let her go.”

There’s no police training stronger than a cop’s instinct. Faith Mitchell’s mother isn’t answering her phone. Her front door is open. There’s a bloodstain above the knob. Her infant daughter is hidden in a shed behind the house. All that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations taught Faith Mitchell goes out the window when she charges into her mother’s house, gun drawn. She sees a man dead in the laundry room. She sees a hostage situation in the bedroom. What she doesn’t see is her mother. . . .

Faith is left with too many questions and not enough answers. To find her mother, she’ll need the help of her partner, Will Trent, and they’ll both need the help of trauma doctor Sara Linton. But Faith isn’t just a cop anymore—she’s a witness. She’s also a suspect.

The thin blue line hides police corruption, bribery, even murder. Faith will have to go up against the people she respects the most in order to find her mother and bring the truth to light—or bury it forever.

From the Publisher

Read Karin Slaughter’s Will Trent before you watch

Michael Connelly says this is crime fiction at its finest.

Now series on ABC. See crime through his eyes.

Editorial Reviews

Review

PRAISE FOR THE CRIME FICTION OF KARIN SLAUGHTER

“Karin Slaughter is one of the best crime novelists in America.”—The Washington Post

“Crime fiction at its finest.”—Michael Connelly

“Slaughter writes like a razor . . . better than Cornwell can ever hope to be.”—The Plain Dealer

“Slaughter will have you on the edge of your seat.”—The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“One of the boldest thriller writers working today.”—Tess Gerritsen

“Move over, Catherine Coulter—Slaughter may be today’s top female suspense writer.”—Library Journal (starred review)

From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Karin Slaughter is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of eleven thrillers, including Broken, Undone, Fractured, Beyond Reach, Triptych, and Faithless. She is a native of Georgia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

SATURDAY

CHAPTER ONE
            Faith Mitchell dumped the contents of her purse onto the passenger seat of her Mini, trying to find something to eat. Except for a furry piece of gum and a peanut of dubious origin, there was nothing remotely edible. She thought about the box of nutrition bars in her kitchen pantry, and her stomach made a noise that sounded like a rusty hinge groaning open.
The computer seminar she’d attended this morning was supposed to last three hours, but that had stretched into four and a half thanks to the jackass ion the front row who kept asking pointless questions. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation trained its agents more often than any other agency in the region. Statistics and data on criminal activities were constantly being drummed into their heads. They had to be up -to -date on all of the latest technology. They had to qualify at the range twice a year. They ran mock raids and active shooter simulations that were so intense that for weeks after, Faith couldn’t go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without checking shadows in doorways. Usually, she appreciated the agency’s thoroughness. Today, all she could think about was her four-month- old baby, and the promise Faith had made to her mother that she would be back no later than noon.

            The clock on the dash read ten after one o’clock when she started the car. Faith mumbled a curse as she pulled out of the parking lot in front of the Panthersville Road headquarters. She used Bluetooth to dial her mother’s number. The car speakers gave back a static-y silence. Faith hung up and dialed again. This time, she got a busy signal.
Faith tapped her finger on the steering wheel as she listened to the bleating. Her mother had voicemail. Everybody had voicemail. Faith couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard a busy signal on the telephone. She had almost forgotten the sound. There was probably a crossed wire somewhere at the phone company. She hung up and tried the number a third time.
Still busy.

            Faith steered with one hand as she checked her Blackberry for an email from her mother. Before Evelyn Mitchell retired, she had been a cop for just shy of four decades. You could say a lot about the Atlanta force, but you couldn’t claim they were behind the times. Evelyn had carried a cell phone back when they were more like purses you strapped around your shoulder. She’d learned how to use email before her daughter had. She’d carried a Blackberry BlackBerry for almost fifteen years.

But, she hadn’t sent a message today.

Faith checked her cell phone voicemail. She had a saved message from her dentist’s office about making an appointment to get her teeth cleaned, but there was nothing new. She tried her phone at home, thinking maybe her mother had gone there to pick up something for the baby. Faith’s house was just down the road from Evelyn’s. Maybe Emma had run out of diapers. Maybe she’d needed another bottle. Faith listened to the phone ring at her house, then heard her own voice answer, telling callers to leave a message.

            She ended the call. Without thinking, she glanced into the back seat. Emma’s empty car seat was there. She could see the pink liner sticking out over the top of the plastic.
            “Idiot,” Faith whispered to herself. She dialed her mother’s cell phone number. She held her breath as she counted through three rings. Evelyn’s voicemail picked up.

            Faith had to clear her throat before she could speak. She was aware of a tremor in her tone. “Mom, I’m on my way home. I guess you took Em for a walk …” . . .” Faith looked up at the sky as she merged onto the interstate. She was about twenty minutes outside of Atlanta and could see fluffy white clouds draped like scarves around the skinny necks of skyscrapers. “Just call me,” Faith said, worry needling the edge of her brain.

            Grocery store. Gas station. Pharmacy. Her mother had a car seat identical to the one in the back of Faith’s car. She was probably out running errands. Faith was over an hour late. Evelyn would’ve taken the baby and … . . . Left Faith a message that she was going to be out. The woman had been on call for the majority of her adult life. She didn’t go to the toilet without letting someone know. Faith and her older brother, Zeke, had joked about it when they were kids. They always knew where their mother was, even when they didn’t want to. Especially when they didn’t want to.

            Faith stared at the phone in her hand as if it could tell her what was going on. She was aware that she might be letting herself get worked up over nothing. The landline could be out. Her mother wouldn’t know this unless she tried to make a call.   Her cell phone could be switched off or charging or both.   Her Blackberry BlackBerry could be in her car or her purse or somewhere she couldn’t hear the tell-telltale vibration. Faith glanced back and forth between the road and her Blackberry BlackBerry as she typed an email to her mother. She spoke the words aloud as she typed—
            “On-my-way. Sorry-I’m-late. Call-me.”

She sent the email, then tossed the phone onto the seat along with the spilled items from her purse. After a moment’s hesitation, Faith popped the gum into her mouth. She chewed as she drove, ignoring the purse lint clinging to her tongue. She turned on the radio, then snapped it back off. The traffic thinned as she got closer to the city. The clouds moved apart, sending down bright rays of sunshine. The inside of the car began to bake.

Ten minutes out, Faith’s nerves were still one edge, and she was sweating from the heat in the car. She cracked the sunroof to let in some air. This was probably a simple case of separation anxiety. She’d been back at work for a little over two months, but still, every morning when Faith left Emma at her mother’s, she felt something akin to a seizure take hold. Her vision blurred. Her heart shook in her chest. Her head buzzed as if a million bees had flown into her ears. She was more irritable than usual at work, especially with her partner, Will Trent, who either had the patience of Job or was setting up a believable alibi for when he finally snapped and strangled her.

Faith couldn’t recall if she had felt this same anxiety with Jeremy, her son, who was now a freshman in college. Faith had been eighteen when she entered the police academy. Jeremy was three years old by then. She had grabbed onto the idea of joining the force as if it was the only life preserver left on the Titanic. Thanks to two minutes of poor judgment in the back of a movie theater and what foreshadowed a lifetime of breathtakingly bad taste in men, Faith had gone straight from puberty to motherhood without any of the usual stops in between. At eighteen, she had relished the idea of earning a steady paycheck so that she could move out of her parents’ house and raise Jeremy the way that she wanted. Going to work every day had been a step toward independence. Leaving him during the day had seemed like a small price to pay.

Now that Faith was thirty-four, with a mortgage, a car payment, and another baby to raise on her own, she wanted nothing more than to move back into her mother’s house so that Evelyn could take care of everything. She wanted to open the refrigerator and see food that she didn’t have to buy. She wanted to turn on the air conditioner in the summer without worrying about having to pay the bill. She wanted to sleep until noon, and then watch TV all day. Hell, while she was at it, she might as well resurrect her father, who’d died eleven years ago, so that he could make her pancakes at breakfast and tell her how pretty she was.

No chance of that now. Evelyn seemed happy to play the role of nanny in her retirement, but Faith was under no illusion that her life was going to get any easier. Her own retirement was almost twenty years away. The Mini had another three years of payments and would be out of warranty well before that. Emma would expect food and clothing for at least the next eighteen years, if not more. And it wasn’t like when Jeremy was a baby and Faith could dress him in mismatched socks and yard sale hand-me-downs. Babies today had to coordinate. They needed BPA-free bottles and certified organic applesauce from kindly Amish farmers. If Jeremy got into the architectural program at Georgia Tech, Faith was looking at six more years of buying books and doing his laundry. Most worryingly, her son had found a serious girlfriend. An older girlfriend with curvy hips and a ticking biological clock. Faith could be a grandmother before s...

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

SATURDAY

CHAPTER ONE
Faith Mitchell dumped the contents of her purse onto the passenger seat of her Mini, trying to find something to eat. Except for a furry piece of gum and a peanut of dubious origin, there was nothing remotely edible. She thought about the box of nutrition bars in her kitchen pantry, and her stomach made a noise that sounded like a rusty hinge groaning open.
The computer seminar she’d attended this morning was supposed to last three hours, but that had stretched into four and a half thanks to the jackass ion the front row who kept asking pointless questions. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation trained its agents more often than any other agency in the region. Statistics and data on criminal activities were constantly being drummed into their heads. They had to be up -to -date on all of the latest technology. They had to qualify at the range twice a year. They ran mock raids and active shooter simulations that were so intense that for weeks after, Faith couldn’t go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without checking shadows in doorways. Usually, she appreciated the agency’s thoroughness. Today, all she could think about was her four-month- old baby, and the promise Faith had made to her mother that she would be back no later than noon.

The clock on the dash read ten after one o’clock when she started the car. Faith mumbled a curse as she pulled out of the parking lot in front of the Panthersville Road headquarters. She used Bluetooth to dial her mother’s number. The car speakers gave back a static-y silence. Faith hung up and dialed again. This time, she got a busy signal.
Faith tapped her finger on the steering wheel as she listened to the bleating. Her mother had voicemail. Everybody had voicemail. Faith couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard a busy signal on the telephone. She had almost forgotten the sound. There was probably a crossed wire somewhere at the phone company. She hung up and tried the number a third time.
Still busy.

Faith steered with one hand as she checked her Blackberry for an email from her mother. Before Evelyn Mitchell retired, she had been a cop for just shy of four decades. You could say a lot about the Atlanta force, but you couldn’t claim they were behind the times. Evelyn had carried a cell phone back when they were more like purses you strapped around your shoulder. She’d learned how to use email before her daughter had. She’d carried a Blackberry BlackBerry for almost fifteen years.

But, she hadn’t sent a message today.

Faith checked her cell phone voicemail. She had a saved message from her dentist’s office about making an appointment to get her teeth cleaned, but there was nothing new. She tried her phone at home, thinking maybe her mother had gone there to pick up something for the baby. Faith’s house was just down the road from Evelyn’s. Maybe Emma had run out of diapers. Maybe she’d needed another bottle. Faith listened to the phone ring at her house, then heard her own voice answer, telling callers to leave a message.

She ended the call. Without thinking, she glanced into the back seat. Emma’s empty car seat was there. She could see the pink liner sticking out over the top of the plastic.
“Idiot,” Faith whispered to herself. She dialed her mother’s cell phone number. She held her breath as she counted through three rings. Evelyn’s voicemail picked up.

Faith had to clear her throat before she could speak. She was aware of a tremor in her tone. “Mom, I’m on my way home. I guess you took Em for a walk …” . . .” Faith looked up at the sky as she merged onto the interstate. She was about twenty minutes outside of Atlanta and could see fluffy white clouds draped like scarves around the skinny necks of skyscrapers. “Just call me,” Faith said, worry needling the edge of her brain.

Grocery store. Gas station. Pharmacy. Her mother had a car seat identical to the one in the back of Faith’s car. She was probably out running errands. Faith was over an hour late. Evelyn would’ve taken the baby and … . . . Left Faith a message that she was going to be out. The woman had been on call for the majority of her adult life. She didn’t go to the toilet without letting someone know. Faith and her older brother, Zeke, had joked about it when they were kids. They always knew where their mother was, even when they didn’t want to. Especially when they didn’t want to.

Faith stared at the phone in her hand as if it could tell her what was going on. She was aware that she might be letting herself get worked up over nothing. The landline could be out. Her mother wouldn’t know this unless she tried to make a call. Her cell phone could be switched off or charging or both. Her Blackberry BlackBerry could be in her car or her purse or somewhere she couldn’t hear the tell-telltale vibration. Faith glanced back and forth between the road and her Blackberry BlackBerry as she typed an email to her mother. She spoke the words aloud as she typed—
“On-my-way. Sorry-I’m-late. Call-me.”

She sent the email, then tossed the phone onto the seat along with the spilled items from her purse. After a moment’s hesitation, Faith popped the gum into her mouth. She chewed as she drove, ignoring the purse lint clinging to her tongue. She turned on the radio, then snapped it back off. The traffic thinned as she got closer to the city. The clouds moved apart, sending down bright rays of sunshine. The inside of the car began to bake.

Ten minutes out, Faith’s nerves were still one edge, and she was sweating from the heat in the car. She cracked the sunroof to let in some air. This was probably a simple case of separation anxiety. She’d been back at work for a little over two months, but still, every morning when Faith left Emma at her mother’s, she felt something akin to a seizure take hold. Her vision blurred. Her heart shook in her chest. Her head buzzed as if a million bees had flown into her ears. She was more irritable than usual at work, especially with her partner, Will Trent, who either had the patience of Job or was setting up a believable alibi for when he finally snapped and strangled her.

Faith couldn’t recall if she had felt this same anxiety with Jeremy, her son, who was now a freshman in college. Faith had been eighteen when she entered the police academy. Jeremy was three years old by then. She had grabbed onto the idea of joining the force as if it was the only life preserver left on the Titanic. Thanks to two minutes of poor judgment in the back of a movie theater and what foreshadowed a lifetime of breathtakingly bad taste in men, Faith had gone straight from puberty to motherhood without any of the usual stops in between. At eighteen, she had relished the idea of earning a steady paycheck so that she could move out of her parents’ house and raise Jeremy the way that she wanted. Going to work every day had been a step toward independence. Leaving him during the day had seemed like a small price to pay.

Now that Faith was thirty-four, with a mortgage, a car payment, and another baby to raise on her own, she wanted nothing more than to move back into her mother’s house so that Evelyn could take care of everything. She wanted to open the refrigerator and see food that she didn’t have to buy. She wanted to turn on the air conditioner in the summer without worrying about having to pay the bill. She wanted to sleep until noon, and then watch TV all day. Hell, while she was at it, she might as well resurrect her father, who’d died eleven years ago, so that he could make her pancakes at breakfast and tell her how pretty she was.

No chance of that now. Evelyn seemed happy to play the role of nanny in her retirement, but Faith was under no illusion that her life was going to get any easier. Her own retirement was almost twenty years away. The Mini had another three years of payments and would be out of warranty well before that. Emma would expect food and clothing for at least the next eighteen years, if not more. And it wasn’t like when Jeremy was a baby and Faith could dress him in mismatched socks and yard sale hand-me-downs. Babies today had to coordinate. They needed BPA-free bottles and certified organic applesauce from kindly Amish farmers. If Jeremy got into the architectural program at Georgia Tech, Faith was looking at six more years of buying books and doing his laundry. Most worryingly, her son had found a serious girlfriend. An older girlfriend with curvy hips and a ticking biological clock. Faith could be a grandmother before she turned thirty-five.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004J4WN12
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Delacorte Press (June 21, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 21, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3056 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 482 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #19,964 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #142 in Kidnapping Crime Fiction
- #470 in Murder
- #483 in Kidnapping Thrillers

Customer Reviews:
4.6 14,294 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Karin Slaughter

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Karin Slaughter is the author of more than twenty instant NEW YORK TIMES bestselling novels, including the Edgar–nominated COP TOWN and standalone novels THE GOOD DAUGHTER, PRETTY GIRLS, and GIRL, FORGOTTEN. She is published in 120 countries with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. PIECES OF HER is a #1 Netflix original series starring Toni Collette. The Will Trent Series is on ABC (and streaming on Hulu in the U.S, and Disney+ internationally). THE GOOD DAUGHTER and FALSE WITNESS are in development for film/tv. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta.

www.karinslaughter.com

Facebook www.facebook.com/AuthorKarinSlaughter/

Instagram www.instagram.com/karinslaughterauthor/

Twitter @SlaughterKarin

https://linktr.ee/karinslaughter

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

14,294 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all photos

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

The Morellas

Great Thriller: A few parts could have been better. Worth Reading for Sure

Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2016

Verified Purchase

Overall a good story with well developed characters and a good number of memorable well developed scenes.

Its definitely worth the read, and the story pulls you into the characters.

The Good:

+ The attention to detail and accuracy in terms of all things medical, police procedure, and even automotive is excellent.

+ Some beautiful phrases I loved, e.g. "her breathing was soft and familiar, like tissues being pulled from a box". Loved that.

+ The Sara, Faith, Amanda, and Will characters are pitch perfect and most of the minor characters are as well (Roz).

+ Opening scene, chapter one, is fantastic, the fear and panic is palpable.

Some gripes:

Some sloppy fact checking, some 2D characters, a few contrived plot elements and plot holes, some characters telling the story, and the ending could be stronger.

Some fact checking was missed:

1) A brownie box camera would never be used as a crime-scene camera, a 4x5 Wee Gee Speed Graphic with a flash would be the correct tool.

2) The darkroom would be in the basement of the house, not in a closet. You need lots of running water and lots of counter space, cannot see how a 1940s era Atlanta house is going to have all that in a closet.

3) Today, this old lady would not have shot/developed/printed a black and white photo of Evelyn's friend. She would have a digital camera because you cannot get film for a box (or other) camera anymore, and its a lot of work to make black and white photos. Of course the camera at the window would also be digital and modern. (Even if she used her police-issue 4x5 Graflex, if she could get film, telephoto lenses were rare).

4) For a kidnapping it would be the FBI and not the APD waiting by the phone.

5) Would GBI agents really 'check their guns' to interview a gang boss? I don't think so.

6) Does the GBI yell "Police" or "GBI"? Not sure.

7) Chapter 18: how could you really gather that much cash? I don't think a bank branch would be able to give you $200K in cash...they don't keep that much on hand. I would assume some use of counterfeit currency would be used instead?

8) Chapter 18: there could not be blood everywhere when she entered the house. It would have had to be cleaned up, or there would be flies and/or her first response would be to vomit. If it were still there, it would now be dried blood.

Some Plot Holes:

If she's in danger, instead of cops guarding her house for the impromptu reunion, why not go stay in a hotel? She's a GBI agent who can take care of herself.

Why does Zeke come into town at all? And why does he stay with his sister, just to annoy her and mess up her relationships?

Some characters are 2D:

Both Zeke and Angie feel forced and flat and Madam Ling-Ling and Roger Ling...their gang is the Yellow Rebels? seriously? An Asian gang is not going to call themselves a racist slur.

These have their role to play to move the story along, but they don't feel real. Some story elements feel contrived and implausible. If a drug mule flew from Sweden, now he's puttering around midtown somewhere...that seems illogical. And the value of the drugs in his stomach is not a large amount, so the whole gang is not going to care all that much.

I don't see the motivation to kill Boyd. An awful lot of cost/effort to make a GBI agent feel uncomfortable. And if he's on death row, why bother...it seems implausible.

The whole backstory about her brother getting beat up over Faith being an unwed mother--seems way over the top. While the neighbors might talk, this took place in Atlanta in 1970s, not rural GA in 1935--I don't think so much scorn and shame would happen. Unwed mothers happen, but shopping in another part of town? That seems over dramatic.

Her brother is cartoonishly a jerk, that seemed too heavy handed...at least please kill him in the end, that way the reader gets some relief.

And Angie, while obviously a flawed person, also seems unrealistic. Give her some shred of humanity or at least kill her off, again, think of the reader.

And Dr. Dale, I'm sorry, he seems like Goofy MD, and don't see his fit in the story. Make the other guy be at least slightly likable to give Will a little competition and to create more internal conflict for Sara. Her choices are Dr McGoofy or the tall-muscular-shy Will Trent...duh, which one to pick?

Madam Ling Ling in her secret lair with her pet dog is an overdone meme. And the Texicanos led by Ortiz. These all seem a bit 2D to me.

Some plot points miss the turn a bit. Somehow Will, a GBI agent, does not carry his cell phone or gun when he goes for pizza? (Thus Amanda has to pick him up). How did Amanda even know where he was? And then why is he walking this poor wounded dog out to the pizza place? There are some of these moving-the-story along incidents that made me grit my teeth a bit. Last sentence of chapter 12 made me cringe: while I realize Zeke is a jerk, this should have been said without using the 'r' word.

And chapter six..while we need to sew together the plot points, it's too long and dense, it should have been broken into two chapters. First its all Sara, then it's all one long recap of the case files for all the players in the story....its structured well, balancing dialogue, action, and story, but it makes the reader feel trapped in their apartment, and these two characters who are really hot for each other just eat eggs and read a bunch of case files. Build some sexual tension at least...

Chapter 13: Roger Ling is like the most talkative prisoner ever met, he seems to know the life history of every character of the story. He almost feels like he's read the book and he's writing an Amazon plot summary. He seems like Will Trent's best friend as he gives a much-too-long information dump. A drug mule taking a trip to Sweden would be a minor transaction, cannot see that would be something the boss would know or care about. If it were a cargo-container full of drugs, yes, but the stomach only holds so much. The reader does not need every nuance of each character and their case file spelled out. And dialogue-wise, Roger goes from street-thug to college professor...he speaks too clearly.

Plot:

Chapter one started brilliantly then fizzled at the end.

It feels like the action in the back yard was rushed....it was just bam, he's dead, and the cops show up. While some scenes had all sorts of self reflection and deep thoughts, this was like, pow, it's done. Faith looks up and there is Leo Donnelly and poof, all the energy and tension drains from the scene.

How does everybody know there are not more bad guys with guns, what if the baby is not safe, what if for a second she's not sure?

Chapter one starts simply brilliantly, the buildup of tension is exquisite, the action is thrilling, but then it's just over, like the roller coaster had one hill, and it's done. It goes from shots fired to "Emma needs her mom" in four seconds and all the bad guys are either dead or gone.

Chapter 18-20: Without writing spoilers: this part blows up the story for me. First of all, they meet at the scene of the crime? Why? That makes no sense for either party. And both parties of this transaction walk in with the goods? That's not how it works. Unless what the other party wants is hidden away somewhere, then the one with more guns can control the situation. What would stop them from being surrounded and arrested right there? Or just shoot everybody and take the money. And she just walks in?

Logically why not kidnap another person at the same time, let's say a very young one, to guarantee that the one collecting the money can walk out alive? And what bad guy does not have a 'backup bad guy' watching his back, or maybe making more complications or flying-lead-things for those watching this from a distance? While there was a bit of a Star Wars twist to it, I think that so much more could have gone so much more wrong.

Ending: could have done more with it. Just villain loses, the end.

There should have been more complications--it seems sorta rushed. There was a lot of action but once the main characters were all in the same room, then ending would seem fairly predictable. Could have done more to put hero in peril, her family in peril. Maybe knock-off her obnoxious brother? Or take other family members for a wild-ride? Or make Jeremy or Angie the one who set it all up...

All of the above is my opinion, I could be wrong.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Alpha Reader

Brilliant Immersion

Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2011

Verified Purchase

Faith Mitchell returns home one day to every officer's worst nightmare. A bloody handprint on the door. The sound of her screaming baby. A dead man in the laundry and no sign of her babysitting mother, but every sign of a violent struggle.

Evelyn Mitchell has been kidnapped, and as a highly-decorated police officer who once worked a dirty narcotics squad, the possibilities for her kidnapers are endless.

A police officer is missing - not just any officer, but one of Atlanta's first female policewomen to rise in the ranks and retire with the respect of her colleagues and medals to decorate her lapel. Her kidnapping pulls in all the big guns - including Deputy Director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) and one of Evelyn's best friends, Amanda Wagner. Also on the case is Faith's partner, Will Trent. But Will's loyalties are torn in two - on the one hand he would take a bullet for his partner. But Will was also in charge of the investigation which looked into Evelyn Mitchell's possible involvement in a scamming narcotics squad which saw him put her entire team behind bars - while Evelyn retired from the force, and never went to trial. Will's old investigation could hold the key to Evelyn's kidnapping . . . but neither Amanda nor Faith is willing to believe the worst of her.

Faith Mitchell is having a mini-breakdown in the wake of her mother's kidnapping. Will Trent is trying to conduct an old investigation into Evelyn's nefarious police work. Dead bodies of Atlanta gang members are turning up everywhere, and leaving a trail that leads right back to Evelyn's past . . . and Sara Linton has stepped back into Will's life, as a civilian consultant on the case, perhaps his only ally in the investigation into one of Atlanta's most beloved cops.

`Fallen' is the third book in Karin Slaughter's `Georgia' series.

I love Karin Slaughter. I devoured her `Grant County' books, and it remains the only crime fiction series I read devoutly. I have tried my hand at other murder mysteries, but I can never seem to find that perfect Slaughter-balance of interesting police investigation and human drama. Her books are page-turners for the mystery element in each, and the central investigation that propels the story and chills the spine . . . but I keep coming back to Slaughter because of her characters. From the first moment I read Grant County coroner and paediatrician Sara Linton spar with her cheating ex-husband and police chief, Jeffrey Tolliver, I was hooked. Slaughter's characters are messy and real, weaving complicated lies and inevitable heartbreak into their lives and relationships - making for fascinating, vicarious reading. So I, like many other fans, was devastated when Slaughter lived up to her name and severed the `Grant County' series with the death of a beloved main character . . .

Thus, Slaughter's new `Will Trent' and `Georgia' series have become her main attraction . . . even more so when Sara Linton crossed-over to become a main character (and possible love interest) for Will.

I have to admit, I was a reluctant reader of `Triptych' through to `Genesis'. I was still in denial regarding Jeffrey's death, and found no enjoyment from the battering Slaughter put Sara (and readers) through in the wake of his death. However, I started to perk-up by the second `Georgia' book, `Broken' - when it looked as though Sara would get her chance at happiness in the form of Will Trent.

Will is a complicated, brilliant but broken young man. He was an orphan, raised by the state with occasionally disastrous bursts in foster care. While in state care he met and fell in love with a fellow damaged soul called Angie - a girl who was so sexually abused that she has grown into a spiteful woman who uses sex as a weapon, especially against her poor husband Will. He is also dyslexic, and thoroughly ashamed of the fact. Will's body is riddled with foster-care war-wounds, some even self-inflicted. But for all of his tragic past, Will is an accomplished investigator - quietly intelligent and humble, loyal to a fault and charmingly gentle. It was clear from his first meeting with Sara Linton that these two needed each other.

I was happy to get back into Slaughter's series once it became obvious that she intended Will for Sara. I needed that romantic balm in a series that had quickly become a gut-churning emotional wreckage. So I was really looking forward to `Fallen' - the third book which would surely unite these two lost souls.

I do love the emotional, character-driven element of Slaughter's books. But in `Fallen' it was the murder mystery that really dragged me in. This book has so many layers - on the surface it's all about Evelyn Mitchell's kidnapping - but as Will delves into her past, Slaughter's book veers off into many different and fascinating directions. She takes a particular interest in the women of the force in the 1970's, as Will investigates Evelyn and Amanda's lustrous careers. Slaughter looks at the gender imbalance and how these feminist pioneers overcame sexism in the force.

This novel also takes a disturbing look at the powerhouses of the jail system. As gang deaths litter the Atlanta streets, Will and Amanda speak with various imprisoned criminals to get their take on the gang upheavals. This is chilling, particularly for the grains of truth that Slaughter slips in. Though these men are behind bars, they are still connected to the outside criminal world. In some cases, they still have a hand in running it. This thought is crystallized in Will's flippant factoid that when a recent prison riot went down, the New York Times was inundated with calls from inmates, from their illegal mobile phones. This is the state of the penal system in which criminals aren't really taught a lesson, but given new avenues to misconduct. But Slaughter also looks at the harsher reality of imprisonment - particularly when Will and Amanda meet death-row inmates.

The investigation really suckered me into `Fallen', partly because the character element which Slaughter usually excels in fell a bit by the wayside . . . Sara Linton felt like an afterthought. She's conveniently in the right place at the right time to offer a helping hand in the investigation. Amanda, Will and Faith all use Sara as a sounding-board for their theories; which felt a little far-fetched and clumsily convenient once again. I understand that Slaughter wants to integrate Sara into the `Georgia' series - and I really, really want her there. But I needed a bit more believability in her presence.

That being said, I do love Sara and Will. They are the reason I will be eagerly anticipating the fourth `Georgia' book in 2012. Sara and Will's tentative romance will be the reason I scour chat boards for spoilers and the balm I needed in the wake of Jeffrey's senseless (but brilliantly written) death.

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

@meu.gato.amarelo

É a aqui que nasce Sara e Will This is where Sara and Will were born

Reviewed in Brazil on January 31, 2024

Verified Purchase

Para quem lê a série é nesse livro que descobrimos verdades sobre a mãe de Faith (início incendiário esse, loucura total) e como nasce o romance entre Sara e Will. Fora a trama incrível da autora. Amei. For those who read the series, it is in this book that we discover truths about Faith's mother (an incendiary beginning, total madness) and how the romance between Sara and Will is born. Apart from the author's incredible plot. I loved.

One person found this helpful

Translate review to English

Marsha Reynolds

Fallen

Reviewed in Canada on December 12, 2023

Verified Purchase

Really enjoyed the ongoing saga.

Cspande

Fallen

Reviewed in India on September 12, 2019

Verified Purchase

No match for Karin Slaughter

sara mago

A cop world

Reviewed in Italy on April 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

It’s a cop world. Everything revolves around cops and their good or bad or, in some cases, abominable behavior. Gets boring after a while.

Tanya

The sweetest mix of romance and carnage

Reviewed in Australia on July 30, 2017

Verified Purchase

The Sarah Linton / Will Trent romance is heart-rendingly lovely! The plot is intriguing and the ending as satisfying as a piece of pecan pie! Thanks for another wild ride, Karin Slaughter! Am truly addicted to these characters!

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

Fallen: A Novel (Will Trent Book 5) Kindle Edition

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Product details

Videos

About the author

Karin Slaughter

Customer reviews

Reviews with images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries