Fractured

Starred review from May 12, 2008
At the start of bestseller Slaughter's heart-pounding sequel to 2006's Triptych
, wealthy housewife Abigail Campano returns home one day to Atlanta's posh Ansley Park neighborhood to find a dead girl in the mansion's upstairs hallway, the apparent killer nearby. Thinking that the girl is her teenage daughter, Emma, the distraught Abby kills the alleged attacker only to realize that the murdered girl is not Emma, but Emma's friend, Kayla Alexander. Agent Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation soon determines that he has a murder and kidnapping on his hands. Paired with Det. Faith Mitchell, Trent scrambles to put the pieces together and find Emma before it's too late. Slaughter brings the same raw energy and brutal violence that distinguishes her Grant County series (Beyond Reach
, etc.) to this new series with chilling results, while Trent and Mitchell, a pair of complex and deeply flawed heroes, will leave fans clamoring for the next installment.

July 15, 2008
The best-selling author of "Triptych" offers another compelling crime novel, bringing back familiar characters and using again the setting of Atlanta. Finding her daughter murdered in her upscale home, Abigail Campano kills her daughter's assailant in revenge. But is the situation that simple? Slaughter takes readers on a roller-coaster ride of suspense, mixing a slew of shady suspects with a detective with some secrets of his own that mayor may notbe pertinent to the case. She steers us from the grungy streets of Atlanta to the campus of Georgia Tech and into the politics of law enforcement, with the great details on the cityscape of Atlanta certain to impress fans familiar with the city. This is an excellent exploration of the universal hopes, fears, and dangers that swirl in the microcosm of a city. For popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 4/1/08.]Colleen S. Harris, Univ. of Tennessee at Chattanooga Lib.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 27, 2008
Murder, kidnapping, mistaken identity and deeply buried secrets make Slaughter’s latest audiobook an emotional roller-coaster ride of mystery and suspense. Affluent Atlanta housewife Abigail Campano, arrives home to find a man standing over the corpse of a teenage girl she thinks is her daughter. She kills him in a blind rage, but learns later that he and the dead girl were friends of her daughter, who has been kidnapped. Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent and APD detective Faith Mitchell are assigned to find Emma. Phil Gigante powerfully drives this suspenseful story forward with a sincere and nuanced reading. Moving easily between characters, he conveys each of their complex relationships and emotions, whether it’s the underlying tension from Trent and Mitchell’s forced partnership or Abigail’s suffering over the loss of her child and the guilt over having killed an innocent man. A Delacorte hardcover (Reviews, May 12).