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In BROKEN, Slaughter brings together three compelling characters: former Grant County medical examiner Sara Linton, still bitter after the death of her police chief husband, for whom she blames Lena Adams. Adams is a detective in Grant County, the only woman in the department. Then there's Will Trent, an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, whom Linton calls in after the suspect in a murder investigation kills himself. The story starts off with a young college woman who has been killed and thrown into a lake. Police finger a local teenager with slight retardation, but Linton, in town from Atlanta and visiting her family, knew the teen and doesn't believe he could be a killer. Two more deaths follow, and while these serve to keep the plot moving, the story's focus is really on the three main characters. Slaughter doesn't just tell the story from one character's viewpoint either; we get to see what all three are thinking at times. Linton cannot be in the same room as Adams, and doesn't believe that Adams can do any good. Adams is a good detective at times, but she makes some very bad judgment calls. And Trent is dyslexic, with a chip on his shoulder about his disability. They make for an interesting triangle as they investigate the murders. There's much backstory to this novel – the characters come from two of Slaughter's series, the Grant County series which features Linton and Adams, and the Will Trent/Atlanta series. But being new to the Slaughter books doesn't present a problem; she gives enough background in BROKEN. The audiobook is narrated by Natalie Ross, who manages to bring all the characters to life with perfect pitch. The sign of a good narrator is that you forget his or her gender -- they can do male and female voices effortlessly. Ross, a stage actor, does this, as well as giving us a range of Southern accents. A cross between a police procedural and a thriller, BROKEN works well as an audiobook – the story (at 13 hours and 34 minutes) doesn't drag at any point, and Ross' smooth voice keeps you hooked until the end. § Lourdes Venard is a newspaper editor in Long Island, N.Y.
Reviewed by Lourdes Venard, July 2010
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