Blindsighted

Saturday night dates at the skating rink have been a tradition in the small southern town of Heartsdale for as long as anyone can remember, but when a teenage quarrel explodes into a deadly shoot-out, Sara Linton - the town's pediatrician and medical examiner - finds herself entangled in a terrible tragedy.

An apparent student suicide has brought medical examiner Sara Linton to the local college campus, along with her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver. But a horribly mutilated corpse yields up few answers. And a suspicious rash of subsequent "suicides" suggests that a different kind of terror is stalking the youth of Heartsdale, Georgia - a nightmare that is coming to prey on Sara Linton's loved ones.

In Karin Slaughter's exciting new thriller, an officer is shot point-blank in the Grant County police station and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver is wounded, setting off a terrifying hostage situation with medical examiner Sara Linton at the center. Working outside the station, Lena Adams, newly reinstated to the force, and Frank Wallace, Jeffrey's second in command, must try to piece together who the shooter is and how to rescue their friends before Jeffrey dies.

The victim was buried alive in the Georgia woods, then killed in a horrifying fashion. When Sara Linton and Jeffrey Tolliver stumble upon the body, both become consumed with finding out who killed the pretty, impeccably dressed young woman. And for Sara and Jeffrey, a harrowing journey begins, one that will test their own turbulent relationship and draw dozens of lives into the case.

Detective Lena Adams is the only suspect in a murder in Georgia. One hundred miles away, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver finds out that his young detective has been arrested. Jeffrey's wife Sara has no patience for Lena or her dramas. Fighting a malpractice suit, the last thing Sara needs is to see Jeffrey playing Lena's knight in shining armor. Lena has leapt into an underground world of bigotry and rage.

Bill Black is a scary guy: a tall ex-con who rides to work on a Harley, and trails an air of violence wherever he goes. In Macon, Georgia, Bill has caught the eye of a wiry little drug dealer and his cunning girlfriend. They think Bill might be a useful ally. They don’t know that Bill is a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent named Will Trent. Or that he is fighting his own demons, undercover and cut off from the support of Sara Linton - the woman he loves, who he dares not tell he is putting himself at such risk.

It's the most dangerous case of Will Trent's career. He knows this from the moment he sets foot in the abandoned Atlanta warehouse where a body lies on the floor - the body of an ex-cop. Bloody footprints leading away from the scene reveal that another victim, evidently a woman, was carried away and has vanished into thin air. And, worst of all, the warehouse belongs to the city's biggest and most high-profile athlete - a local hero protected by the world's most expensive lawyers.

From Atlanta's wealthiest suburbs to its stark inner-city housing projects, a killer has crossed the boundaries of wealth and race. And the people who are chasing him must cross those boundaries, too. Among them is Michael Ormewood, a veteran detective whose marriage is hanging by a thread and whose arrogance and explosive temper are threatening his career. And Angie Polaski, a beautiful vice cop who was once Michael's lover before she became his enemy.

Ansley Park is one of Atlanta’s most desirable neighborhoods. But in one mansion, in a teenager’s lavish bedroom, a girl has been savagely murdered. In the hallway, her horrified mother stands amid shattered glass, having killed her daughter’s attacker with her bare hands. Detective Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is here only to do a political favor; the murder site belongs to the Atlanta police. But Trent soon sees something the cops are missing, something in the trail of blood, in a matrix of forensic evidence, and in the eyes of the shell-shocked mother.

There’s no police training stronger than a cop’s instinct. Faith Mitchell’s mother isn’t answering her phone. Her front door is open. There’s a bloodstain above the knob. Her infant daughter is hidden in a shed behind the house. All that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations taught Faith Mitchell goes out the window when she charges into her mother’s house, gun drawn. She sees a man dead in the laundry room. She sees a hostage situation in the bedroom. What she doesn’t see is her mother....   

What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all? Andrea Cooper knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows Laura has spent nearly her whole life in the small beach town of Belle Isle, Georgia; she knows Laura's never wanted anything more than to lead a quiet, normal life in this conventional community; she knows Laura's a kind and beloved speech pathologist who helps others; she knows Laura's never kept a secret in her life. Andrea knows that Laura is everything she isn't - confident, settled, sure of herself. 

Will Trent, a dedicated agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for 15 years, knows that there’s definitely such a thing as a cop’s intuition - which is why he should have listened to his own. While in a restroom at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Will overhears a girl’s pleading, plaintive voice: "Please, I wanna go home." Something isn’t right here, thinks Will. He feels it in his gut. But he waits too long to act, and now the girl and the anxious, angry man she’s with have disappeared into the crowds at the busiest passenger airport in the world.

Atlanta, 1974: It's Kate Murphy's first day on the job, and the Atlanta Police Department is seething after the murder of an officer. Before the day has barely begun, she already suspects she's not cut out to be a cop. Her male uniform is too big, she can't handle a gun, and she's rapidly learning that the APD is hardly a place that welcomes women. Worse still, in the ensuing manhunt she'll be partnered with Maggie Lawson, a cop with her own ax to grind.

On a hot summer night, a scientist from the Centers for Disease Control is grabbed by unknown assailants in a shopping center parking lot. Vanished into thin air, the authorities are desperate to save the doctor. One month later, the serenity of a sunny Sunday afternoon is shattered by the boom of a ground-shaking blast - followed by another seconds later. One of Atlanta's busiest and most important neighborhoods - the location of Emory University, two major hospitals, the FBI headquarters, and the CDC - has been bombed.

Detective Will Trent is standing in a Georgia convenience store, waiting on an obstinate ICEE frozen-drink machine. To the surveillance cameras and bored staff of the Lil' Dixie Gas-n-Go, however, Will appears to besome one very different - the menacing ex-con Bill Black. Going undercover as Bill, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent is about to infiltrate the most corrupt town in the most corrupt county in the new American South. But first: his ICEE.