Product Description

A small Georgia town erupts in panic when a young college professor is found brutally mutilated in the local diner. But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear.

Sara's ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, leads the investigation -- a trail of terror that grows increasingly macabre when another local woman is found crucified a few days later. But he's got more than a sadistic serial killer on his hands, for the county's sole female detective, Lena Adams -- the first victim's sister -- want to serve her own justice.

But it is Sara who holds the key to finding the killer. A secret from her past could unmask the brilliantly malevolent psychopath .. or mean her death.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67440 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Released on: 2002-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 400 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780380820887
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
In Blindsighted (book one of an anticipated three featuring Grant County, Georgia, pediatrician and coroner Dr. Sara Linton), first-time novelist Karin Slaughter comes out swinging in true medical examiner fashion. That is to say, covered with blood from the get-go.

Without warning, the body jerked violently, pitching forward and slamming Sara onto the floor. Blood spread out around both of them, and Sara instinctively clawed to get out from under the convulsing woman. With her feet and hands she groped for some kind of purchase on the slick bathroom floor. Finally, Sara managed to slide out from underneath her. She turned Sibyl over, cradling her head, trying to help her through the convulsions. Suddenly, the jerking stopped.

Sibyl is, or was, Sibyl Adams, a college professor who had the misfortune of being drugged, savagely raped, slashed, and left for dead in the toilet of the local diner, to be coincidentally discovered by Sara Linton. Coincidences don't stop there, and neither do the rapes and murders. The next is, unimaginably, still more gruesome than the first and it, too, is discovered by Dr. Linton. Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver is Sara's ex-husband, and mercurial detective Lena Adams, another major player in the ensuing drama, was Sibyl's twin sister.

And the monster behind these increasingly more depraved acts? Suspects abound, from the diner's jack-of-all-trades, Will Harris, to Victim No. 2's boyfriend, to Jack Allen Wright who, a dozen years prior, raped Dr. Linton (that rape had been a secret until now). There are other possibilities, naturally, and it soon becomes apparent that Sara's an intended target.

A graduate of the Patricia Cornwell school of mayhem and gore, Slaughter has faithfully stitched together a fast, engaging, and diverting read complete with a strong-yet-vulnerable heroine. Characters are nicely if somewhat obviously drawn, the plot is inventive, and the narrative's pacing quickens the pulse straight to the cliff-hanging denouement. And really, what more can you ask of an ME thriller? --Michael Hudson

From Publishers Weekly
Billed as "Thomas Harris Meets Patricia Cornwell" and heralded by much advance hoopla in industry magazines, this long-anticipated launching of a scheduled three-book series featuring an attractive Georgia university town pediatrician-coroner marks the debut of a promising young author, but ultimately disappoints, partly due to overly-exorbitant pre-publishing claims. As Dr. Sara Linton leaves her pediatric clinic to meet her 33-year-old younger sister for lunch at a campus eatery, she receives a postcard picturing Atlanta's Emory University, where she interned. The enigmatic biblical message reads, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" At the diner, she goes to the restroom and discovers a young blind university professor who has been raped and brutally slashed with a knife. Too late to save her, Sara calls her ex-husband police chief, who, coincidentally, employs the victim's twin sister, Lena, as a detective. The trail quickly leads to a missing co-ed, and suspicion falls upon her druggie boyfriend. The co-ed is found raped, heavily drugged with belladonna and stretched out nude as if crucified on the hood of Sara's car in the hospital parking lot. Soon after, Lena is abducted by the killer. Fighting her attraction to her ex, Sara begins to suspect the rape-murders are tied to her own rape in the Emory parking lot 12 years ago. At the end, little suspense remains. Sara Linton is no Kay Scarpetta and her villain is a mere shadow of the complex, chilling Hannibal Lecter, but forgiving inept, trivia-cluttered dialogue and manifest lack of firsthand fluency in the medical arena the offbeat characters and setting are engaging enough to leave readers awaiting a sequel. (Sept. 17)Forecast: The hype including a blurb from George Pelecanos plus major advertising and a 5-city author tour should sell this early on, but the uneven execution may weaken demand for Slaughter's next book. Blindsighted is an alternate selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Doubleday Book Club and the Mystery Guild, and foreign rights have been sold in Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Denmark and Norway.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This debut novel's title refers to the extreme dilation of the pupils that results in the inability to see through open eyesone of the symptoms of belladonna ingestion. It also refers to authorities in a small Georgia town who must track down a serial killer who uses the drug to control his victims as he rapes and tortures them before the kill. As Sara Linton, the town's pediatrician and coroner, and Jeffrey Tolliver, chief of police and Sara's ex-husband, work furiously to find the killer, they realize that they must also face the secrets of their pasts, secrets to which they had turned a blind eye for many years. Only then can they see the killer in their midst. This is an extremely mature first novel, with well-developed characters and a finely tuned plot; it also has a creepy killer and enough gory details to satisfy any Thomas Harris fan. The slightly too-neat ending paves the way for a sequel, which is already planned for 2002. Recommended for all public library thriller collections.Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, IN
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Great late-night reading
I picked up Blindsighted on a whim. The cover blurbs sounded interesting, and I love to read a good, gory, mystery. This one does not disappoint.

Karin Slaughter--a wonderful name for a crime/mystery writer--sets her novel in a small town in Georgia. Nothing much happens in Heartsdale, and the local pediatrician, Sara Linton, also works as the coroner. Sara meets her younger sister for lunch at the local diner one afternoon and stumbles upon a grisly scene. The twin sister of a local detective has been viciously attacked, mutilated, and raped. It's not long before another victim surfaces, and Sara works along with her ex-husband who also happens to be the Chief of Police to try to track down this sick killer. All the while, Sara has her own tortured past as well as her strained relationship with her ex-husband to deal with. In this small town where everyone knows everyone else, who could possibly be the twisted rapist murderer?

Slaughter seems to have done her research for this novel. The medical information alone is quite interesting, and the dialogue and characters are believable. The plot is a bit easy to figure out early on in the novel, but I think it's probably pretty difficult to write a totally original novel dealing with serial killers in this day and age. Overall, I enjoyed the story. It's well written, and it's a quick read that's perfect for the summer.

Vivid and terrifying.....
Karin Slaughter thrusts the reader into her story from the very beginning!! Her writing comes at you fast and hard and you are propelled into the world of Sara Linton, a pediatrician and also the town coroner.
When Sara discovers a college professor in a diner who has been brutally raped and mutilated, moments from death, the horrifying story begins. Is this a random act, will there be others and who can be behind the cold, precise tortuous murder? Sara must deal with the facts in her job as coroner and the feeling that somehow it is her responsibility to find the missing fragments to a perplexing, horrendous murder.
Events from Sara's past surface, affecting the way she looks at everything in her life and coloring her perspective.
This is a compelling, fast paced, psychological thriller that is both vivid and terrifying.

Unexpected Treat
What initially attracted me to "Blindsighted" was the violence of its beginning. Even in a genre noted for the horrific, this tale wastes no time in firing with both barrels as Sara Linton, coroner of a sleepy, conservative Southern town enters a diner's restroom to discover the aftermath of a bloody and brutal attack on a local college professor. The woman dies in Sara's arms, and the subsequent autopsy reveals a crime almost baroque in its complex horror.

Sara's role forces her to deal with her ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver. This unwilling partnership must confront its own issues while trying to deal with a second murder, even more gruesome than the first. Also part of the hunt is Detective Lena Adams, sister of the first victim. Torn by her own grief and a sense of powerlessness, the crimes seem to eat away at her, stretching her ability to retain control of her personal and professional life. The three find that they are dealing with a deranged serial killer that not only tortures and molests his victims, but then leaves them to be found at the edge of death. For Sara the deaths seem to be an impossible message from the past.

Each of the players, including the invisible killer, has some defect or injury which makes them vulnerable. As the lens shifts back and forth from Sara to Jeffrey, then to Lena, then back again, it is the fine detail of their personalities as much as the complex forensic work that first hides and then finally reveals the roots of the killer's motivation. Much of what makes "Blindsighted" work is the adeptness with which Karin Slaughter combines a complex and fast paced plot with unusually well developed main characters. Sara Linton, Jeffrey Tolliver, and Lena Tolliver are all given loving attention. If you think this means that some of the minor characters are too sketchy, you will be much surprised.

Wherever you look, this is a detail rich story. It lives up to it's billing as a Southern mystery story, not simply by hiding behind stereotypes, but in allowing the reader to experience the conflicts that lie under the surface of a rural South that is only steps away from it's urban counterpart. Nor are these factors peripheral to the tale. It is remarkable to encounter a first novel where the author as conscious of the part each fragment will play in the whole as is Karen Slaughter. While nothing is ever perfect, there is nothing here that is amateurish. This is something fresh and original for those who thought that the serial killer was past its peak.