The Kept Woman (Will Trent Series #8)

by Karin Slaughter

Overview

“Part True Detective, part The Girl on the Train. All parts gripping.” —theSkimm

Husbands and wives. Mothers and daughters. The past and the future.

Secrets bind them. And secrets can destroy them.

The author of Pretty Girls returns with an electrifying, emotionally complex thriller that plunges its fascinating protagonist into the darkest depths of a mystery that just might destroy him.

With the discovery of a murder at an abandoned construction site, Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is brought in on a case that becomes much more dangerous when the dead man is identified as an ex-cop.

Studying the body, Sara Linton—the GBI’s newest medical examiner and Will’s lover—realizes that the extensive blood loss didn't belong to the corpse. Sure enough, bloody footprints leading away from the scene indicate there is another victim—a woman—who has vanished . . . and who will die soon if she isn’t found.

Will is already compromised, because the site belongs to the city’s most popular citizen: a wealthy, powerful, and politically connected athlete protected by the world’s most expensive lawyers—a man who’s already gotten away with rape, despite Will’s exhaustive efforts to put him away.

But the worst is yet to come. Evidence soon links Will’s troubled past to the case . . . and the consequences will tear through his life with the force of a tornado, wreaking havoc for Will and everyone around him, including his colleagues, family, friends—and even the suspects he pursues.

Relentlessly suspenseful and furiously paced, peopled with conflicted, fallible characters who leap from the page, The Kept Woman is a seamless blend of twisty police procedural and ingenious psychological thriller — a searing, unforgettable novel of love, loss, and redemption. 

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062696304
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	02/13/2018
Series:	Will Trent Series , #8
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	402,616
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed storytellers. Published in 120 countries with more than 35 million copies sold across the globe, her nineteen novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar-nominated Cop Town and the instant New York Times bestselling novels Pretty Girls, The Good Daughter, and Pieces of Her. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta. Her novels Pieces of Her, The Good Daughter, and Cop Town are in development for film and television.

Editorial Reviews

Suspense that continually ratchets upward, a revealing look at domestic violence in all levels of society, and the continued development of a tight-knit cast of characters. This is prime Slaughter, must-read fare for thriller fans.

Booklist (starred review)

A thriller that’s part ‘True Detective,’ part ‘The Girl On The Train.’ All parts gripping.

The Skimm

07/25/2016
Dale Harding, the murder victim at the center of bestseller Slaughter’s exciting if flawed sixth novel starring Will Trent and Dr. Sara Linton (after 2013’s Unseen), was a retired (and dirty) Atlanta cop. Harding’s body turns up in a nightclub belonging to a celebrity athlete who recently beat a rape charge in a case handled by Will, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent. A gun at the crime scene ties the whole mess to Angie Polaski, Will’s dangerously off-kilter wife, who frequently leaves him for long periods but always returns. Further complications follow after Sara, Will’s current girlfriend, who’s now a GBI medical examiner, tells him that Harding wasn’t the only one who suffered—and bled a lot—in the club. The case becomes almost too large for Slaughter to contain, which could explain her choice to rely on an awkward extended flashback sequence, but she mostly manages to wrangle this installment into an intense look at the nature of loss and control, and how love can taint both. Five-city author tour. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Associates. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 08/01/2016
After a stand-alone title (Pretty Girls), Slaughter returns with a new Will Trent thriller. As the book opens Will is just coming off a failed attempt at getting a conviction in the case of basketball superstar Marcus Rippy, who was acquitted of rape charges. Now he's called out to investigate the death of Dale Harding, whose body was discovered at an abandoned construction site. Dale was a retired, and reportedly dirty, cop, which is complication No. 1. Complication No. 2 is the site itself. The construction of this nightclub was halted because the owner, Rippy, was on trial for rape. And complication No. 3: Dale may not have been the only victim. The blood and other evidence at the scene suggests the presence of a woman, who may be mortally injured and personally connected to Will. VERDICT Slaughter excels at complications—both for her characters and in the mysteries they're investigating. This is a page-turner, of course, but it's also a multilayered exploration of choices and consequences and the lasting effects of damage done. [See Prepub Alert, 3/7/16]—Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI

Library Journal

2016-07-03
After two intense stand-alones (Pretty Girls, 2015, etc.), Slaughter brings back the regulars whose personal problems are just as dark, urgent, and potentially violent as those of the criminals they investigate.In the two weeks since medical examiner Dr. Sara Linton joined her lover, agent Will Trent, on the payroll of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, everything’s been fine, except of course for Will’s uneasy sense that Angie Polaski, the long-estranged wife he just can’t get around to divorcing, will never let him alone. How right he is. A Glock found near the scene of a grisly murder is quickly traced to Angie. Now Amanda Wagner, the GBI deputy director who mercilessly rides Will and his partner, Faith Mitchell, wants to know what Angie had to do with the death of Dale Harding, a thoroughly miserable human being who was a detective with the Atlanta PD. The case is already a minefield: the murder scene, drenched in blood that isn’t Harding’s, is the construction site of the All Star, a nightclub owned by basketball star Marcus Rippy, who’s well-known to Will as the man who raped Keisha Miscavage and, thanks to his feral manager, Kip Kilpatrick, and an army of lawyers, walked away two weeks ago without so much as a summons. The forensic evidence indicates that at least one other person was seriously wounded at the murder scene before vanishing. Forget about indicting Rippy for the crime; Will would be lucky to interview him. Just when it seems that Will’s ties to the case couldn’t become more fraught, Slaughter interrupts the action for a hundred-page flashback to the week before the killing. Things get clearer but no less tense.Middling for a matchless series (Unseen, 2013, etc.) in which, just as in grand opera, nothing ordinary ever happens.

Kirkus Reviews

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