Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Broken: A Novel (Will Trent)

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Read the "Grant County" series first!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2022

This is the fourth book in the Will Trent series, and I have read the three preceding books. But there is also another series (Grant County) that takes place before the first Will Trent book. I have not read those.

Up until this point, the Grant County series didn't seem to matter to Will's adventures/cases. But in BROKEN (which is set in Grant County), most of the characters come from that earlier set of stories and the author has to do a lot of back-story-telling to enlighten readers like me as to who all these characters are. I wasn't aware of some of the family relationships until the very last chapters. I would have enjoyed the story more if I didn't continually ask myself: "wait, who is this person"?

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Kindle Customer

Great plot, but....

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 25, 2022

Do enjoy Slaughter's writing, but found the characterisation in this one a little confusing and conflicted. Lena was drawn very weirdly, an inately decent person who was really a victim of circumstance. Yet Wil and his pretentious doctor friend openly discriminate against her, even encourage hate.

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Kathi

Read the "Grant County" series first!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2022

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2 people found this helpful

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CJ Lawrence

Broken

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 15, 2022

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I love reading a novel where I can't figure out whodunit!
Will Trent is an awesome character and I love this series.

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Dotti Elrick

Sara's Goodbye to Grant County

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 17, 2013

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When I finished this book, I thought that the author could not have chosen a better title. Broken, perfectly describes what has happened to the small town of Heartsdale, in Grant County after it's police chief was killed four years earlier.

After the death of her husband, Jeffery, Sara Linton has moved away from her family home. A place she grew up, her family is there, a few friends, and the place where she met and fell in love with Jeffery. Sara has made a new life for herself in Atlanta. She is head of the pediatric department in the Grady ER. She has started dating again and finally feels in control of her life.

It's been over four years since she has been to Grant County. Now it's the Thanksgiving holiday, and her mother wants her to come home. Sara hasn't yet unpacked her car when someone is trying to reach her. A former patient of hers, Tommy Braham, has been arrested and being held on murder charges. Sara remembers Tommy as being mentally slow, more childlike than adult. But the caller insists that Tommy needs to speak to Sara. The last thing she wants to do is get involved in town problems again. And she really does not want to step foot into the police station where her husband spent so much of his time. Or where she might run into the woman she thinks is responsible for Jeffery's death. Lena Adams.

Lena has been the only female detective on the Grant County police force. Jeffery hired her right out of the academy. She always looked up to him, thought of him as a mentor. But unlike Jeffery, Lena has no qualms about bending and or breaking the rules if that is what is required to get the result she wants. She carries a major chip on her shoulder and enough attitude for twenty people. Sara knows she's a dirty cop. But Lena has learned how to slip under the radar, trouble just tends to slide away from her.

But not this time. Lena and acting chief, Frank Wallace are called to the scene of an apparent suicide. Allison Spooner is found chained to cinder blocks and thrown into the lake. But as the body is removed, clues point to murder. Once again Lena jumps to conclusions and her actions end up getting herself and two other officers injured when they go to confront the suspect. Tommy is taken to jail and Brad Stephens is flown to Macon, critically injured.

When Sara arrives at the jail to speak with Tommy, she and Frank find him dead in his cell. He had stolen an ink pen cartridge from Lena, and slit his wrists. Hearing that Lena is involved, is all the motivation Sara needs. She contacts the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and asks for an investigation into the death.

Will Trent has been an agent with GBI for many years, he's very unconventional, laid back and easy going. But he misses nothing. He and Sara met a few months earlier while working another case. Sara is pleased that it's Will who shows up. She knows he can get to the truth behind Tommy's suicide, and find out who has killed Allison. She also has personal reasons for wanting Will near by. He is the first man since her husband whom Sara has been attracted to. Too bad he's married.

I loved the book. If you haven't read the other books in the series, I would highly recommend them as well. They are well written, fast paced, have realistic characters, and hit an emotional chord. They can be graphic so just be warned. But they are great.

2 people found this helpful

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The Past Exerts Its Hold On Us

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 28, 2010

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This is the first novel by Karin Slaughter that I have read. It held me enthralled until the last two chapters, than the sameness of all mystery novels showed its head. The writing is superb, and the characters are such individuals with closely held views that this seemed like a mystery that was real.

A murder, a forced confession, a suicide, good cops gone bad, good cops with secrets, a Pediatrician/pathologist-that was the toughest to swallow, but it seemed realistic, families all with dysfunction, but then who has seen a fully functional family recently? All of this packed into a novel with one of the most delightful Georgia detectives, Will Trent. Though he seems to have his own issues, dyslexia his entire life, without diagnosis and he made it up the ladder without being able to read? It does not seem probable nor possible. However, his method of working a case is so precise and unusual that I was willing to overloook this peculiarity. Each person it seems has some unusual characteristic that separates them from reality. Few of them could function in our real world, and here they are all set in one town and in this novel. They all come with such interesting histories and have been able to hold themselves together, but really they are all broken. And, they all want to be fixed. They all want their lives to work, to fall in love, even though they may already be married. See what I mean? The impossilbe and the improbable are all here in full view, for all of us to see and marvel at how they continue to function. They aren't really bad people, fallen off the track somewhere, and need someone to set them straight and right.

Somehow the murders are solved, but the real reasons are not known, and the lies and hidden issues are never fully resolved. The truely bad go away, and the others back to their old lives. Nothing is really solved, their problems go with them and there is no one to help them through their morass. The ending left me unsettled, I suppose it is like real life. No one ever has their problems all wrapped up and off to a new life. I surmise we will see many of these characters in future stories.
I am hopeful that some of these characters will go into therapy so at least one of them will seem whole.

Recommmended. prisrob 07-27-10

Undone: A Novel

Fractured

3 people found this helpful

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MrsLeif

This series is only getting better! Sara is back in Grant County

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 23, 2018

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This series is only getting better!

Sara is back in Grant County. She's visiting her family through the holidays. She has not been back in almost four years.

Shortly after her arrival, the body of a young woman is found in the ice. The man suspected of her death, asks for Sara's help. At first, Sara wants nothing to do with it but she believes something is going on with the police department, especially with Detective Lena Adams. She calls the GBI in.

Will who's on vacation is called by his boss, Amanda Wagner. She wants him to go to Grant County and find out the truth about the murder and to look into what the police department is hiding.

Will knows this is personal for Sara. Yet, his gut instinct is telling him that there's something wrong with the police department. It's not the same as when Chief Tolliver was handling it. Frank is the interim chief and he and his detectives are not welcoming or helpful.

Broken was bittersweet. We see Grant County through Sara and Lena's eyes. Losing Jeffrey has brought nothing good to the town. Both women can't wait to leave it.

Lena has stayed behind because the town represents Jeffrey. Lena is in a relationship. A healthy one which is a shock. I guess she finally learned her lesson. Lena is more mature and less inclined to blame others for her mistakes. She still makes them but at least she's able to point the finger at herself. I was surprised to see her being helpful to Will. I mean she still kept things from him but she was not as bad as 4 years ago.

“He was playing chess and she was sucking at checkers.”

Will is amazing in this one too. He's able to follow the crumbs to find the truth. Once he realizes something is off, Will is too stubborn to let it go.

It was so tough to see Sara back in her hometown. Her devastation and pain were there for anyone to see. Some of the scenes brought tears to my eyes. I continue to root for Sara and Will. I think they can make a great couple.

I found it refreshing to see Sara's sister Tessa in a happy marriage and starting a family. Tessa had it rough too and she has earned some happiness. I love Sara and Tessa's relationship. They are truly siblings.

“Tessa reached out and took her hand. “Can I tell you something?”
“As long as it’s not advice on chasing after a married man.”

Cliffhanger: No

5/5 Fangs

3 people found this helpful

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Beth I-L

Great twisty, turny, mystery and character study

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 27, 2021

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This 4th book in the series spends a lot of time establishing characters and putting them in a place to move the series forward. The murders propel the story, which is a an intriguing one, but it is the developments we see with Will, Sara, and even Lena that are the most compelling as we look towards the future.

Sara is home in Grant Co for Thanksgiving. She gets pulled into a death that is attached to a murder and is infuriated when she sees the sloppiness at the police station. She calls in a favor from Amanda and soon Will is down in Grant Co to investigate. However, he has to come without his partner Faith, who is hours away from having her baby, which complicates things for him.

This is a great study of police procedure as Will makes his way through the case and mountains of lies and the obstruction he is dealing with. There’s really no way to figure out who the bad guy is ahead of the reveal as key information is withheld. There are pieces of the story you’ll likely get but not all of it so it’s kind of an out of left field shocker.

The book ends with some things dangling to leave us wondering what comes next. Since we know there are several more books and know at least partly where one path ends up it’s going to be interesting finding out how we get there.

2 people found this helpful

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Mal Warwick

A well-crafted suspense novel of small-town crime

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 20, 2011

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Broken, last year's entry in Karin Slaughter's decade-long series of crime thrillers set in her native Georgia, brings together two of her leading characters, Dr. Sara Linton and Will Trent.

Linton, now a physician working in the ER in an Atlanta hospital, returns home to Grant County in southern Georgia for the Thanksgiving holiday. There she confronts a series of troubling reminders of her husband's murder years previously. As the town's former coroner, far more able than the mortician who took over her job when she fled to Atlanta, Dr. Linton becomes embroiled in the first of a series of mysterious murders. Convinced that the local police are incompetent at best, she calls in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and is soon reunited with Agent Will Trent, whom she had previously met in Atlanta.

Trent, the centerpiece of several previous novels by Slaughter, is a brilliant detective with a troubled past in a children's home, a sadistic and unfaithful wife, and a deeply secret disability: he is severely dyslexic. Apart from his boss and partner, no one has managed to detect Trent's disability, but Sara Linton quickly picks up on it in the course of the fast-moving investigation. It appears as though we can look forward to a developing relationship between the two.

In several ways, Broken is exceptional, like an earlier novel of Slaughter's that I read two or three years ago. Her description of small-town life rings true; other authors often treat their settings perfunctorily, simply making them places where stuff happens. Her leading characters are smarter and more able than most but avoid looking like the superheroes who populate some other thrillers. Perhaps most remarkably, there are loose ends as the novel draws to a close, and not all the bad guys get their comeuppance.

Karin Slaughter, just 40 years old now, has been publishing best-selling thrillers for little more than a decade. I'm looking forward to a lot more from this talented Southern writer.

[...]

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TUCSON ROBERT

book 4) is another wonderful read by one of America’s best story tellers in ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 21, 2015

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BROKEN (Will Trent series, book 4) is another wonderful read by one of America’s best story tellers in the mysteries field. As always author Karin Slaughter concentrates on character development and lets the plot take care of itself. The venue for the story is the Atlanta area where Slaughter resides and where it seems to never stop raining. The body of a young Grant Tech College student, Allison Spooner, is recovered from a nearby lake with a stab wound high in the back of her neck. A mentally challenged young man is arrested. Dr. Sara Linton, the former town medical examiner and pediatrician, now living and working in Atlanta, returns home for a quiet four-day Thanksgiving holiday visit with her family. When the town’s interim police chief calls her to help with one of her former patients who has been arrested for Spooner’s murder and is out of control in his jail cell she reluctantly agrees. On her arrival at the jailhouse she finds him dead from an apparent suicide. Soon matters spiral out of control. Sara senses a cover up by the local police department and angrily takes matters into her own hands by requesting help from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in Atlanta. GBI agent, Will Trent, arrives in the small town and initiates an investigation which quickly goes awry. The rank and file of the town’s police force stonewall Trent’s inquiries at every turn. Dr. Linton’s vendetta against Chief Detective Linda Adams—whom she believes contributed to her husband’s death four years earlier when he was chief of police—further complicates Agent Trent’s investigation. Trent also suspects collusion between Detective Adams and the town’s alcoholic interim police chief, Frank Wallace.
The story is a roller coaster ride with a mix of strong egos, raging past personal hatreds, and small town law-enforcement corruption.
BROKEN may be the best of the nine Karin Slaughter books I have read. I give the story a strong 5-star rating.

5 people found this helpful

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L. Parker

Superb series

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 24, 2022

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Superb series! Gruesome acts of violence investigated by a lovable GBI agent who believes he is alone in this world and doesn't deserve love. Will Trent is easily someone you root for. Brave, handsome, endearing, real.

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Jami Browning

Karin Slaughter is a great suspense author!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 10, 2022

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I really enjoyed reading this book. Karin Slaughter is one of my favorite suspense authors.

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