It's so good to catch up with these two characters again in this topical thriller.

It's a fast-paced thriller that really digs into the motivations and appeal of Alt-right groups. Without preaching or in any way condoning (far from it!) the actions of the group that kidnaps Sara, Karin Slaughter does explore the political, economic and social climate that has led to such dissatisfaction, and in extreme cases, violence and terrorism. Will has to infiltrate the group to rescue Sara and prevent another attack. The book had me on the edge of my seat on more than one occasion and I couldn't read it fast enough.

My thanks go to Net Galley and the publishers for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

Cards on the table, I am a Karin Slaughter fan!

I think after this book you will be too.

What makes her storytelling so good is the attention to detail and the work she puts in behind the scenes to make it believable. Unfortunately the premise in the book is worryingly believable.

She writes so well and her turns or phrase are real and not cheesy at all, she keeps to coming back for more and it is such a quick read because you don’t want to stop.

I have read quite a few of Karen Slaughter's books - the best of which are the Grant County series. -this latest one -The Last Widow - does not disappoint . . Will has to step up to the plate -in order to rescue Sara from a particularly nasty bunch . Touching on tense subjects such as racism -child abuse -mass murder -it's a roller coaster ride from start to finish !
My only criticism was probabaly at the beginning when the story was told from 3 different perspectives -I did get a little bored -however once the story unfolded -I was hooked .Can't wait for the next chapter in Will and Sara's lives !!

From the first to the last page this book ripped along at nail breaking speed . Karin Slaughter never disappoints At times the tension is palpable and deals with difficult subjects including the frightening rise of the Alt Right. Sadly this is the story of our time.

An engaging read that is particularly topical at this time, both horrific and enthralling as you work your way through such an emotive subject. The in-depth research by the author is obvious in the detail but delivers slightly differently in way of the same story being told from different characters. What wasn’t different was the graphic details which I am a big fan of.
Although a slower start I felt it was a nice build up to the page turner we expect and love from the excellent Karin Slaughter. Thoroughly recommended.
With thanks to the publisher via NetGalley for the ARC

Karin Slaughter fans have been waiting a long time for this book. The Last Widow is the 9th book in the Will Trent series. Last time we saw Will, was in The Kept Woman back in 2017. Well, it was definitely worth the wait- and you can see why it took so long (apart from Slaughter writing two stand alone novels in the mean time). The research for this book must have taken an insanely long time. It is so very detailed. I get super excited when a new Slaughter book is announced, so it is no surprise that I gave this one 5 stars. Here’s what I thought:

Bit of a back story for the two main characters – Will Trent and Sara Linton. We met Sara back in Blindsighted (the first of the Grant County series in 2001), where she was married to Jeffrey, the town’s chief of police. She looked after the towns kids as the doctor, and looked after their deceased as the coroner. Helping her husband solve murder cases, Sara was involved in a lot of drama throughout the series. After Jeffrey’s murder, she met Will, a GBI agent, whilst helping on another case. She has evolved from the small town pediatrician to the medical examiner for the GBI.

Will was first introduced to us in Triptych, where we also met his horrible ex-wife Angie. Luckily for us Angie doesn’t show her face in The Last Widow. Will is socially awkward, he’s not used to attention and people being nice to him, and he was brought up in the foster system. He and Sara have found love in the most hostile of circumstances and now face their toughest challenge…

Sara gets kidnapped by a terrorist organisation known as the IPA. They need her to help rid the kids of a measles outbreak in their mountain camp. Will must go under cover to rescue her before it is too late, and the IPA carry out their mission.

Now, as I mentioned, KS has done A LOT of research into her subject matter. White supremist groups, chemical and biological weapons, racist paedophiles – you name it, KS has looked into the depths of horror and pulled out a masterpiece of writing. She doesn’t hold back. We get the details, however disgusting they are, and trust me, the bad guys here are nothing short of scum. She doesn’t use violence and gore for shock value, it is used to accurately set the scene of situations that unfortunately seem all to real.

My heart breaks for Will when he realises Sara has been taken and that he can’t do anything about it. You can tell she is his world, and he needs to help her. Can he get her back? Can he stop the IPA from delivering their ‘message’ before it is too late?

Special mention for Faith, Will’s partner at the GBI, she is instrumental in getting Will the back up he needs when he needs it most, and she also provides the humour to keep us up when the subject matter is getting just a little too tough. "Her cop's salary, along with her propensity for having children out of wedlock, had put a major dent in her travel budget".

I am hoping to see Van Zandt again at some point in relation to Faith… "She bit her lip. She was going to end up blowing this guy just for his access to secret government control rooms".

Overall, this is a great instalment in the Will Trent series. I would recommend, although you are likely to need chunks of time to read this as it is quite unputdownable!

Oh wow, I just could not put this book down, talk about a page turner... at the outset we see Michelle being kidnapped, she is a scientist specializing in diseases but is the reason she was taken and if so, by whom?

Roll on an explosion at the local hospital, a terrorist plot? The book is told in three POV narratives, that of Sara, Will and his partner Faith so you got the story from every angle. It was a fast moving book involving pedophilia, child abuse, child murders, white extremists, religious beliefs, terrorism, the list is endless. This book will keep you reading into the night, its so intense, I had to keep reminding myself to breathe!!! Will definitely be recommending.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins UK, Harper Fiction for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

I’d like to thank HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Last Widow’ by Karin Slaughter in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

GBI special agent Will Trent and his paediatrician girlfriend Sara Linton are preparing to meet with Sara’s family for Sunday lunch when they hear an explosion. They immediately race to the source of the smoke which appears to be coming from Emory University when the perpetrators kidnap Sara. This act, together with the earlier abduction of scientist Michelle Spivey, is the start of the most deadly case Will has ever been involved in.

Karin Slaughter has written a phenomenal thriller which begins with the events that happen on Sunday 4th August seen through the eyes of Sara, Will and his colleague and friend Faith. The narrative seemed so real that I felt I was there when Will was trying to locate and save Sara and stop the acts that were threatened. I was totally absorbed from page one, through each twist and turn, to the gruesome, bloodthirsty and absolutely horrific conclusion. I’ve read previous books in the Will Trent and Sara Linton series but this has to be the best yet.

Not only Karin Slaughter is back, but Will Trent is back!!! My favourite special agent has to save the world and the woman he loves in a new fast-paced and engrossing novel that I couldn’t put down.

What was supposed to be a family Sunday lunch for Will and his girlfriend, medical examiner Sara Linton, turns into bombs exploding, kidnappings, murder, and a race against time to stop a group of white supremacy terrorists from going through with their deadly plans.

In this new novel, Karin Slaughter takes us right into a far-right cult made of white men who want to control women, who want to cleanse the world of people of different race and religion and who make my blood boils in rage with every word they utter. I wish that the world Karin Slaughter created was pure fiction, but it felt so frighteningly real and menacing that I was on the edge of my seat with every page I read.

The story is told from three different points of views, Sara, Will and his partner Faith. I loved how the author structured the narrative and she rewrote some of the same scenes from different perspectives so that we see how all the characters feel and react to the same hard situation. Some of the descriptions were very disturbing and violent as Karin Slaughter addresses themes of rape, paedophilia, torture, and child murders making for a chilling and thought-provoking read, which is not new with this author.

I loved how we got a closer and deeper look inside Will and Sara’s relationship. I do adore these two characters and I love seeing them together. They are very different and they come from a different background but they fit so well together (I am a hopeless romantic!). In THE LAST WIDOW we see them not only fight to save each other, but also get a more profound understanding of each other that makes me just want to read more about them.

THE LAST WIDOW is the latest and ninth instalment of the Will Trent series. Like the other novels in this fantastic series, it is addictive, highly suspenseful, and thrilling and I am already looking forward to the next book!!!

This story opens with an abduction of a mother out with her teenage daughter on an innocent shopping expedition. Leaving this situation aside, the action moves to Sara Linton a widow trying to resume her life after her husband, a policeman was killed in action. Will Trent, working for the Georgia Investigative Bureau, has, with the support of his mentor, and subsequent relationship with Sara, attempted to move on from a difficult and abusive childhood in care. Quickly a terrorist attack on the local hospital, followed by a second abduction, drags our protagonists into the middle of an unknown crisis with little idea why or whom is responsible. We the reader are gradually exposed to several issues that appear to have a tenuous link although lack of cooperation between the FBI and GIB suggest the relevant bodies are working to their own agenda. Those responsible for safeguarding the country face a race against time, and often adverse assistance from their counterparts to discover who is carrying out the atrocities and the reasons behind their terrorism. The author draws on several topical issues all highly controversial , particularly our general inherent assumptions as to who and what we expect terrorism to look like. We are then taken on a cat and mouse chase where every second counts, towards an earth shattering conclusion where rapid response is not always timely or appropriate and good versus bad is not always an equal confrontation.

Topical Georgia-based thriller with plenty of action - a roller-coaster ride!

At the beginning of this novel, a disease specialist is kidnapped and, from that point onwards, it's virtually non-stop action as Sara, a doctor and medical examiner, and her partner, Will, a GBI agent, try to thwart the kidnappers in their plan. Without giving too much away, there's a lot of character development and the plot moves along at a steady pace. As with many thrillers, there's bloodshed, a body count and plenty of other types of criminal activity. This is the third Karin Slaughter book that I've read and it lives up to the standard which I've come to expect. - although not my favourite. Still highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Last Widow is the ninth book in the Will Trent series. It can be read as a standalone but you may well want to go and read the backstory of both Will and his partner, Sara. I have been a huge fan of the author and I’ve read all her books. This did not feel like the usual offering from Karin Slaughter, which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it.

This novel centres on a group of white supremacists intent on conducting biological warfare within Georgia. The group have kidnapped a scientist who specialises in disease control and, in a rather convenient coincidence, also kidnap Sara who is a doctor. There is a sickness in the group’s camp and they expect Sara to treat the sufferers. It is up to Will and his colleagues at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to track Sara down and avert a biological disaster.

The novel is well written, plotted and executed. It takes a long hard look at the continued rise of right wing ideology and the reasons why young, white, males are drawn to this view of the world. Slaughter pulls no punches in her language or coverage of the subject matter. There is plenty of action and violence in this thriller which really had a different to feel to her previous books.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Karin Slaughter is one of my favourite authors but this time she served up a book that was very dark indeed and delves into the psychoses of several people including her hero and heroine as well as their foes. A gripping book that goes to the wire.
The story shows just how mad can some Americans get in their belief in how the original and entitled inheritors of the land are white men - yes, women are only useful for providing children and looking after the men. So a complete patriarchal society and selective memory as to who ‘owned’ the land they claim.
And then there is the belief that young girls really do want to be raped by fathers and other males from a very very young age - yes, according to paedophiles they are sexually aware and ready from babyhood.
So we have a man, a paedophile in fact, who is a cross between a prepper - in that he wants to live off the land and in a very basic ‘biblical’ manner, whereby the patriarch has many wives (even if they are all his female children); that all other ‘adult’ males can be used as cannon fodder but shouldn’t be near his females unless he has absolute control over them - and a person who reasons that society has become corrupt and needs to be cleansed, violently, and as completely as possible, and is willing to sacrifice everyone else to his beliefs. I am not American but I do believe that there are white supremacists who believe similar tings about society and that being white is to be the world’s inheritor.
The last widow is to be the witness to this sacrifice to ensure that society knows who performed the cleansing and why.

I do like Karin Slaughter as an author - she has such a twisted mind that her books are always a surprise and dark delight, and this is no different. Avidly reading through the book, it starts quite reasonably in a scenario most people can envisage, if only in nightmares, and then captivates and draws the reader in, in quite a similar way to the storyline, to a dark and twisted conclusion. You can't predict where this is going to go until you turn the page. Classic Slaughter - love it.

Will and Sara are back!

I was delighted to get approved by the publisher via NetGalley for an eARC of The last Widow by Karin Slaughter. Delighted. I couldn’t click the send to my Kindle button fast enough. And then I did what I so rarely do – I started reading straight away. And I was hooked.

I have been reading Karin Slaughter’s books now for nearly two decades, well something like that. I remember reading Blindsighted when it was first published way back in 2001(?). I remember it opened with quite a shocking scene in a bathroom(??)– I must make some time to re-read it.

So, it is safe to say that Karin Slaughter is one of my all-time favourite authors, certainly high up in my Top 10 Favourite authors. I love her dark, often gory and intelligent crime thrillers – I have yet to read a bad book of hers. And I doubt I ever will.

The last widow is the 9th book in the Will Trent series and I love Will. And Sara. And Faith and even Amanda. The characterisation is great. Karin Slaughter is a master at developing her characters and their story arcs from one book to the next, which in my opinion makes the books best read in order.

As with all her other books, The last widow was well written, fast paced and had a gripping story. I really enjoyed the different POVs and I enjoyed the slow start of the book with the same scene written from both Will and Sara’s individual perspectives. Then the action started and, well… SPOILERS.

I wanted to slow down my reading but at the same time, I wanted to read faster to find out what was happening. It was an unexpected book. Or at least I didn’t expect the direction of the story. It was at times an uncomfortable read and dealt with themes of domestic terrorism, that are unfortunately relevant to the world we live in. The plot was great, but I don’t want to say too much – spoilers! But it was another intense outing for Will and Sara. And that ending left me eagerly awaiting the next book.

And isn’t the cover design lovely? I think it fits the story well. And I am very much enjoying moody cloud spotting. I see moody clouds everywhere; well I do live in Scotland. But seriously, moody clouds are my new favourite cover design trend.

I am fairly confident that The last widow will be featuring in my end of year favourite books of 2019 blog post. I was impressed. I wanted more. I highly recommend it and any of Karin Slaughter’s other books in the series.

The last widow by Karin Slaughter is due to be published on 13th June 2019.

And now the wait for the next instalment begins…

I loved this book! I think I would have enjoyed it a little bit more if I was up to date with the rest of the series, but I was still able to read this as a standalone and to love it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Sara and Will and think they are amazing characters and very well written. This storyline was tense and impossible to put down. Although some parts were slow going, they were still enjoyable because you knew they were building up to a big event. It was a nice change from typical thrillers, and definitely surprised me. Full of action right from the start, this is a very tense and suspenseful read! In time I will definitely be reading the rest of this series. I have some other Karin Slaughter books waiting to be read, so I’ll definitely be reading them very soon!

Before you start this the latest book in the Will Trent series, make sure you have enough time to finish it. You will not want to put it down. Karin Slaughter is a master (or should that be mistress), when it comes to storytelling. She somehow moves the story on at such a pace, but at the same time builds up the tension. I don’t think there were any extraneous words in this. Every one of them was needed.

Her books can sometimes be criticised for including too much violence and not particularly, politically correct. Personally I feel that is quite refreshing in the current climate when a small minority complain about any deviation from what is considered the social norm. This story certainly deviates from the social norm. It is based around a white supremacist group that will stop at nothing to eradicate non-whites, including, child murders, paedophilia, rape and biological warfare, but as distressing as these topics are, they didn’t feel out of place in this compulsive and engaging story.

Sara and Will feel like friends this far into the series, yet their characters continue to develop and evolve, along with the usual other characters from the series. A very emotive ending. Cannot wait for the next in the series.

Overall this is a fantastic book that has obviously been extremely well researched, developed and adapted to fit scenarios that worryingly do not feel impossible, with all that is going on in the real world. A strong contender for my book of the year, at least.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Collins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

Oh. My. God.
This is my first Karin Slaughter. It will not be my last.

Sara and Will get mixed up I’m a white supremacy group whilst inadvertently trying to help out at a road traffic accident. And the tension ratchets up. And up and up. Told in real time with continual time checks throughout the book, this storyline will have you holding your breath time and again.
The terror of the situation, the disbelief, the psychological manipulation are all too evident. If you ever wondered “how” terror groups recruit the disenfranchised this book will tell you.
Unbelievable but shockingly believable of our times this is a book you won’t ever forget.
Karin is a Master of her craft and an incredible writer

For reasons that I can no longer remember, I originally gave up on Karin Slaughter after her 2004 Grant County series novel, Indelible - this is a mistake which will be quickly remedied.

The Last Widow is the ninth book in her Atlanta GBI series, which seems to follow on from Grant County, but despite not having read the intervening ten books and assorted novellas I fell straight back into the narrative.

Dr Sara Linton and GBI Agent Will Trent are en route to an emergency when they stop to help at the scene of a fatal car accident, but things are not as they seem, and the situation quickly deteriorates for both Sara and Will. Torn apart, they need to summon the strength to deal with a white supremacist militia group, and to quickly discover what they want with a CDC scientist.

The Last Widow is fast paced but loses nothing for the urgency with which it is told. It’s well written, terrifyingly relevant to current events, and gripped me from start to end. The only bad bit was that it ended, but at least I’ve added another ten books to my reading list.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Round of applause to Karin Slaughter for another amazing book!!!!
Ever since reading her first book I’ve been hooked and I was so happy to read this and very thankful for an advanced copy.
The pace of the book is great, it gives us information about every character introduced to the book and it gives you more insights on the relationship between Sara and Will. I also enjoyed reading about the way the family feel about Will and the way they deal with this.
The plot of the book is amazing. It’s fast paced and definitely a page turner. It was very interesting as it brings in modern day tragedy. I spent so many late nights reading to see what happens.
I cannot wait for the next instalment as it did leave us on a little cliffhanger between Sara and Will. Once again thank you for the advanced copy. Well done Karen