Faithless - Karin Slaughter

The gripping new thriller from international bestseller Karin Slaughter A walk in the woods takes a sinister turn for police chief Jeffrey Tolliver and pediatrician Sara Linton when they stumble across the body of a young girl. Incarcerated in the ground, she has quite literally been scared to death. Detective Lena Adams is called in from vacation to help with the investigation, and the trail leads to a neighbouring county - and to a long-buried secret in Sara's mother's past. Forced to go undercover to protect the people she loves most, Sara - along with Jeffrey and Lena - soon learns that nothing comes without a price.

Slaughter has a knack for coming up with weird cases, this time it's girls being buried alive for punishment. Jeffrey and Sara discover a coffin in the woods with a dead girl inside. The coffin had a breathing pipe to keep the girl alive but they soon find out that she was poisoned.

Their investigation leads them to a very religious family who manages a soybean farm. At the same time, Sara discovers that her mother had some connections with members of that family in the past and Sara’s sister has started going to their church and wants to take her along.

What I didn’t like in the mystery department is that after the first body was found they spend too long in the investigation stages and also dealing with Jeffrey, Sara and Lena’s private lives. There is no sense of suspense, no urgency in the resolution of the case and things proceed at a slow pace. For a thriller I think that did not work very well. On the other hand, I quite like Slaughter’s views on a variety of subjects she ends up mentioning in the books so I still enjoy following their private lives and doubts and decisions. Things like religious fanaticism, family and domestic abuse among others.

Another thing that was odd was that there were mentions of events of past books like Kisscut and A Faint Cold Fear but nothing about Indelible where Jeffrey almost died. Although I liked it and I found one of the final scenes terrible emotional I think there was some strength lacking in the resolution. There was no climax.

Grade: 4/5