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Undone
by
Karin Slaughter
It is part of the Will Trent #3 series and is a thriller that was published by Delacorte Press on July 14, 2009 and has 449 pages.
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Other books in this series include [books_series]
Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Blindsighted, Kisscut, Indelible, A Faint Cold Fear, Faithless, Beyond Reach, Triptych, Fractured, Broken, Fallen, "Snatched", Criminal, "Busted", Unseen, "Cleaning the Gold", The Last Widow, The Silent Wife
Third in the Will Trent series set in Atlanta, Georgia, revolving around the dyslexic and socially awkward Special Agents Will Trent and his partner, Faith Mitchell. It also brings in Dr Sara Linton from Grant County.
My Take
Undone introduces Dr Sara Linton from Slaughter’s Grant County series, and I am loving this opportunity to find out how Sara is doing. I’m also so grateful to get past Undone and all the grief it dredged up about Jeffrey’s death.
“Make up your mind. Either live or die, but don’t force us to watch you waste away like this.”
Slaughter uses third person global subjective point-of-view with the primary perspectives coming from Will, Faith, and Sara, obviously. There are other characters, however, whose thoughts and feelings we read about when neither of these three are around.
Jeez, ya gotta feel sorry for Judith with all that unwantedness and lack of expectation for her as a child. Henry is a dichotomy with his preference for home but working as a traveling salesman, selling alcohol but not drinking it, terrified of heights but possessing a pilot’s license.
That’s so sad when Faith tells Sara that Will will be thrilled that she took him for an educated man. Knowing how Will sees himself, well, it does make sense and makes me want to cry.
What’s beyond sad…wa-a-a-a-y beyond…are the cops who screw up and/or are only worried about covering themselves. There is no consideration for the victim! What’s with this?? Criminals have more rights. These cops don’t care. I can understand being mad when one’s case is taken away, but don’t be obstructive! Don’t endanger others! Leo. I’m torn about his character. He does step up to help Faith and Will, but he’s such a lazy schmuck. Now he’s so worried about being kicked out, but does he shape up at all???
Even sadder…I know…what’s with all the “sad”??? I feel so bad for Will and his battle with his dyslexia and the crap people pull on him because of it. Just thinking about his cellphone issues makes me wanna cry. As for Amanda’s treatment of him??? What is with that??? She is such a bitch!!
It’s a twitchy relationship between Will and Faith. Both keep things from the other. Personal issues that will have a great impact on their working relationship, which began in Fractured, 2.
Ya never know what you’re gonna learn… I had no idea a marine battery was so different from a car battery. It’s not just a label indicating it’s okay in a water environment. As for Faith’s and Will’s storage closets, er, I mean, offices, lol…
As for Will’s thought about prostitution: “It was modern slavery, which was ironic, considering most if not all of the pimps were black.” Revenge?? Karma??
Normally, I sympathize with the victims (of a thriller, mystery, suspense, etc.), but I gotta say it was dang hard to sympathize with some of the victims in this one. You’d think some gratitude would show… Then again, the horror of what happened to them as children. Jesus. Why do parents do these things? Why won’t they listen to their kids? It’s a horror how it affects the child throughout their lives…
The Story
It’s horrible enough when your car hits someone, but how much worse is it when that person has already been through so much? Special Agent Will Trent knows Anna must have been held nearby, and he’s determined to find her prison. No matter what it takes.
Will only becomes more determined when he thinks he’s found evidence of a second victim.
The Characters
Dr Sara Linton is back at Grady Hospital’s ER, trying to forget events from Grant County. Billy and Bob are Sara’s greyhounds. Jeffrey Tolliver, the chief of police for Grant County, had been her husband. Cathy and Pete Linton (he’s a plumber) are her parents. Tessa is Sara’s very pregnant sister who married a missionary preacher a few years ago. Now they help AIDS babies in Africa. Aunt Bella.
Grady Hospital
Sara did her internship here at the ER and now she’s back. When she was in Grant County, she had her own pediatrician practice and was the county coroner. Dr Otto Krakauer works the same ER shift as Sara. Dr Phil Sanderson is an orthopedic surgeon; Macon is the X-ray tech. Nurses include Mary Schroder and Jill Marino, who is in ICU.
A friend of Sara’s from school, Dr Delia Wallace, has a dual specialty in gynecology and endocrinology.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) is…
…the state version of the FBI. Deputy Director (of the Atlanta regional office) Dr Amanda Wagner, a.k.a., the Antichrist, is their hard boss. Caroline is Amanda’s assistant. Barry Fielding is their canine expert. Charlie Reed is their scene of crimes guy. Nick Shelton is the regional field agent for District 23.
Special Agent Will Trent suffers badly from (and tries excessively hard to hide) his dyslexia. Special Agent Faith Mitchell is Will’s partner and had been with Homicide for eight years with the Atlanta PD.
Betty is the Chihuahua Will inherited and Angie hates. I love that he spent two weekends building a koi pond for her! Angie Polaski is Will’s wife…at long last. Unfortunately. She’s a former detective who has slept with most of the police force and has known Will since childhood — both were in the foster system. Angie’s mother, Diedre, used to whore her daughter out for speed.
Jeremy is Faith’s son who is in college. Retired Captain Evelyn Mitchell is Faith’s mother. Ted, Faith’s uncle, had dated Amanda. Zeke is Faith’s angry brother, an Air Force surgeon based in Landstuhl, Germany.
Atlanta PD
Detective Leo Donnelly had been Faith’s partner. That’s the best you can say about him, as he’s the type of cop Will NEVER wants to be. Dr Pete Hanson is still the coroner. Snoopy is his lab assistant. Vivian, a body builder, was Pete’s third wife. Miss Nancy is with social services.
Rockdale County PD is…
…a total screw-up. Detective Francis Fierro is a cowardly jerk — I love how Amanda took him down, *snicker*. Detective Max Galloway is almost worse. Chief of Police Lyle Peterson is not one of Amanda’s friends.
A police department in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Dick Winters is an old-timer working the phones.
A naked and tortured Anna Lindsey, a corporate lawyer for Bandle and Brinks, is knocked down by a car. She has a six-month-old son, Balthazar. Poor kid. Otik Simkov is the repulsive doorman at Anna’s building. Cal Finney is Simkov’s lawyer. Freddy is the dead pimp.
Pauline McGhee, a.k.a., Pauline Agnes Seward and Atlanta Thin, has a six-year-old son, Felix. She works as an interior designer at Xac Homage where Morgan Hollister is her self-absorbed, backstabbing boss.
Jacquelyn Zabel is a realtor who has just put her mother, Gwendolyn, in a nursing home. Candy Smith is a belligerent neighbor steeped in marijuana and hypocrisy. Hannah is Candy’s three-year-old daughter. Joelyn, Jackie’s sister, is so much nastier!
The controlling Olivia Tanner, a.k.a., Mia-Three, is a banker. Dr Michael Tanner is her very worried brother, a radiologist who works at Methodist Breast Center in Houston.
Judith and Henry Coldfield have been married for forty years. Now retired from his job as a liquor salesman, Henry prefers golf while Judith keeps busy with her volunteering while living in Conyers just outside Atlanta. Their son, Tom, is an air traffic controller, and is married to Darla who manages the household amazingly. They have two incredibly spoiled children, Mark and a daughter. Rosa had been Judith’s older sister.
The alcoholic — and married — Sam Lawson is a reporter who works with the Atlanta Beacon; he’s also a former boyfriend of Faith’s. Although Sam is still married to Gretchen, he’d like to re-test the waters with Faith. Victor Martinez is a dean at Georgia Tech and Faith’s former boyfriend. Rick Sigler (he’s an EMT whose wife is a nurse at Crawford Long) and Jake Berman (a very unsupportive unemployed builder) along with Beulah, Edna, and Wallace O’Connor were witnesses to the Coldfield-Anna accident. Lydia Berman is Jake’s schoolteacher wife. Lola is a hooker and one of Angie’s CIs. The gnat line is an unofficial dividing line between where gnats are more and less numerous. South of the gnat line is prime gnat territory. Sir Barks-A-Lot is a dog day care facility. Armando regularly delivers pizza twice a week. Tony Campano had been one of the bullies in the children’s home where Will grew up. Alexandra McGhee had the bad fortune to be friends with Pauline. Detective Lena Adams is still on the Grant County police force; Sara blames her for Jeffrey’s death.
The Cover and Title
The cover looks like a photographic negative in deep purple and pale gray, hairs flying every which way and what looks like a clenched fist without fingers thrust up from the lower bottom right. There is an info blurb in white at the very top with the author’s name below it. The title is at the bottom, most of it passing through the hair with the letters outlined in the pale gray.
The title is what will happen when you read the end, you’ll come Undone.
