It begins with an abduction. The routine of a family shopping trip is shattered when Michelle Spivey is snatched as she leaves the mall with her young daughter. The police search for her, her partner pleads for her release, but in the end...they find nothing. It’s as if she disappeared into thin air.
A month later, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, medical examiner Sara Linton is at lunch with her boyfriend Will Trent, an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. But the serenity of the summer’s day is broken by the wail of sirens.
Sara and Will are trained to help in an emergency. Their jobs – their vocations – mean that they run towards a crisis, not away from it. But on this one terrible day that instinct betrays them both. Within hours the situation has spiralled out of control; Sara is taken prisoner; Will is forced undercover. And the fallout will lead them into the Appalachian mountains, to the terrible truth about what really happened to Michelle, and to a remote compound where a radical group has murder in mind.
I'm thrilled to be hosting the blog tour for The Last Widow by Karin Slaughter today. Many thanks to the author and to Becca Bryant for inviting me and for my copy of the novel.
The Last Widow is the ninth book in Karin Slaughter's Will Trent series and will be eagerly welcomed by fans after a three-year hiatus. It's actually my first novel by this author and so I started reading with a little trepidation as to whether it would work as a standalone book for new readers. Thankfully, my concerns were soon put to rest as there is plenty of back story here to ensure I was soon up to speed with the characters' histories and very quickly became completely invested in their lives.
This is certainly not a book to read if you're after a gentle introduction to a story! It opens with a terrifying abduction and I must compliment Karin Slaughter here for the way she introduces the target, Michelle Spivey. Instead of just being a convenient victim, whose only role is to move the story along, she is fleshed out to become real and even in just a few paragraphs, I felt I at least had some understanding of what she was like as a woman. The timeline then skips forward a month, Michelle is still missing but now the story is focused on Sara Linton who is having to answer tricky relationship questions from her mother and aunt. Even as a newcomer to the series, I was soon aware of the tremendous chemistry between Sara and Will Trent and could tell they were very much in love.
It means that I could readily empathise with their terror when they find themselves in a shocking life or death situation; everything spirals out of control so quickly and despite their best efforts they cannot prevent Will being hurt or Sara being snatched by this dangerous group of men. One of my favourite things about The Last Widow is the way that the same events are shown from the perspective of different characters, particularly Will and Sara. At the start of the chapter, the date and time are given and I strongly recommend you take note of these as otherwise it could become a little confusing trying to figure out when certain things happen.
With references to real-life events such as the neo-Nazi Unite the Right rally at Charlottesville, The Last Widow is an astutely contemporary exploration of white supremacy in America. At a time when terrorism is increasingly only being associated with Islamic fundamentalism, it is a disturbing but important reminder that when white nationalism should be equally - if not, more - feared. As a character chillingly states, war is the common thread which unites the men who become white supremacists and the War on Terror has ensured a steady supply of new recruits. Sara has been taken by the Invisible Patriot Army (IPA), one of the scores of nationalist survivalist groups who exist as outliers to society, waiting for their chance to restore what they see as the rightful order of things.
As the novel progresses, the tension becomes almost unbearable as Will desperately tries to find a way to infiltrate the group, while blaming himself for failing to protect Sara. He is petrified that he is already too late and she has already been raped or murdered. Meanwhile, Sara is horrified by what she discovers at the remote camp she is taken to and after being forced to uphold her oath to offer medical care without prejudice, she faces an even more upsetting situation when she has to confront heartbreaking scenes which would haunt anybody.
Although it's quite a long book, I raced through The Last Widow, the ominous feeling of foreboding compelling me to keep turning the pages until the full horror of the IPA's plans are known. I genuinely don't recall coming across such a believably frightening antagonist as the group's leader, Dash and with the increasing legitimisation of the Far Right, this is a truly unsettling read at times. However, The Last Widow is also a powerful paean to the strength of women. Sara is wonderful of course, and I was gripped by her battle to survive against the odds but she isn't the only strong female character in the book. I adored Faith, which I suspect won't come as a surprise to long-term fans of the series and really appreciated how the various women in positions of authority were shown to have supportive, respectful relationships with one another, even when they didn't agree. It's not just the sympathetic female characters who are so well written, though, I was also thrilled to see that the women who are more difficult to like or empathise with, felt equally as well rendered throughout.
I'm kicking myself that it's taken me so long to discover this series! I loved everything about this book, from the superb characterisation to the vividly described settings and the timely exploration of current affairs which concern us all. Highly recommended.
The Last Widow is published in the UK by Harper Collins, purchasing links can be found here or if possible buy from your local independent bookshop.
Don't miss the rest of the blog tour, details are below.
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 19 novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar-nominated Cop Town and the instant Sunday Times bestselling novels Pretty Girls, The Good Daughter, and Pieces of Her. The Good Daughter and Cop Town are in development for film and television and Pieces of Her is soon to be an eight-part Netflix adaptation. Karin is also the founder of the Save the Libraries project- a non- profit organisation established to support libraries and library programming. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
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