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Andrea (Andy) is celebrating her 31st birthday with her mother Laura at the Rise-n-Dine when her mother informs Andy that she must move out and get on with her life. Andy had moved home to take care of her mother when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now Andy works nights for the Police Dispatch Division answering 911 calls among other tasks, lives over the garage at home, and sleeps the daytime away.
Lunch is interrupted by the wife and daughter of one of Laura's speech therapy patients. As Andy sits, waiting for the exchange to end, she hears gunshots. The daughter falls dead as the mother screams, then falls dead on top of her daughter seconds later. Andy spots her mother running toward her and hits her head as her mother tackles her to the ground.
A young man with a gun sees the badge on Andy's uniform and yells at Andy to do her job. Laura explains Andy is not police. He points the gun at Andy, but Laura intercedes. The following encounter leaves the shooter dead, Laura wounded, and Andy stunned. Karin Slaughter describes the confrontation between the shooter and Laura in breath-stopping detail. Andy seems unable to wrap her mind around the fact that her mother took down the shooter and saved them both. And then, Laura's parting words to her before being taken away in an ambulance are: "Don't talk to the police. Tell them you can't remember anything."
Finally dealing with her parent's request to move out, Andy spots a hooded man looking through the windows of her parents' s home while she is trying to retrieve her bicycle. When she gets to the house she sneaks in and finds the man is threatening and torturing Laura, wanting information from her. Andy hits him on his head with a frying pan. Another tension-filled encounter, described for maximum effect ends, once again, with Laura giving Andy specific instructions to run – where to go, what to do, how to avoid being caught.
On page 100, Andy eludes the police she called when she found the hooded man hurting Laura, subsequently finds the hooded man's vehicle and begins driving to the first place Laura told her to go. By this time Andy is scared and wondering who Laura really is.
As Andy follows Laura's directions, naturally pieces start to fall in place. Karin Slaughter's construction of the novel alternates the perspective from Andy's point of view in 2018 to Laura's, as her history unfolds, beginning in 1986. Ms. Slaughter is an excellent storyteller and a seasoned writer. Andy and Laura are finely developed characters who pull the reader through the pages wanting to know more, understand why, and read the story's outcome.
While the editing could be tighter and the book shorter, PIECES OF HER is well-done suspense with controlled pace, designed to keep the reader engaged.
§ Ruth Castleberry has worked as an investigator for Pinkerton’s, a city desk assistant on the Charlotte News, free-lance writer, marketing/business strategy consultant, competitive intelligence practitioner and digital marketing consultant.
Reviewed by Ruth Castleberry, August 2018
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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