British Police Procedural: UNDER A SILENT MOON, Elizabeth Haynes

Often I like the design of a British-edition book cover better than the American version. For the newest suspenseful investigation from Elizabeth Haynes, however, I think the American one lost out by moving the book's Karin Slaughter blurb to the rear instead of the front of the jacket. Slaughter recommended that readers "surrender to this obsessive thriller." Any Slaughter fan will instantly know this is a title to pick up.

But if you're not yet a Karin Slaughter reader, here are some additional reasons to pick up UNDER A SILENT MOON:

* Female investigator protagonist with great layers of character and believable complications: DCI Louisa Smith, running her first major crime investigation.
* Insight into how a major crime team functions, including the British positions on the team.
* Insight in terms of how a team member can get pulled onto the "dark side" of the investigation, because of careless gaps in maturity and sloppy ethics ... and that turns out to embody the compelling and highly suspenseful twists of the book.
* Lively page-turning pace (although at times slightly choppy due to multiple points of view).

Here's a sample:

"Right, let's have some hush, please," Lou said, hoping her voice sounded more commanding than she felt. The briefing room was packed. Andy Hamilton was sitting right at the front; next to him was Barry Holloway. Her detective sergeant, Sam Hollands, was right at the back, her mouth set in a determined line. Lou knew she would probably never have so many people at a briefing again; by the time the first week was over, she would lose people to other duties and would have to beg, borrow, or steal to get them back. If, heaven forbid, the case was to drag on into months, she would end up with only a couple of the people here now.

She needed a quick arrest.

Haynes added another quirk to this, her fourth book (released last fall in the UK; April 2014 in the USA): She slips investigation documents into the text, letting them deliver some of the details and clues -- check out her explanation here: http://www.elizabeth-haynes.com/books/under-a-silent-moon

I found the documents mostly distracting -- it's the people that pull me forward, even in a plot-driven investigation. But I'll put Haynes on my watch list from now on: She's so good, and the book held my interest so well, that I want to see how her crime fiction continues to grow.

Karin Slaughter, CRIMINAL: Covers, US and UK

Yesterday's interview with Karin Slaughter covered so many compelling directions that I'm still thinking about it. And of course, there's her new book CRIMINAL (review here), which extends from the 1970s until now, wrestling with both a horrifying criminal and the changing situation of women in the Atlanta, GA, police force.

One more aspect to consider: I'm always intrigued by the difference between the American and European cover designs. Here they are -- what do you think?

US

UK

Karin Slaughter Interview: CRIMINAL

photo by Alison Rosa

A warm Vermont welcome (from the "cool blue north") to Atlanta, Georgia, resident and crime fiction author Karin Slaughter, whose new police investigation CRIMINAL takes the Will Trent series deeper, tougher, and ironically, sweeter (well, look at all the strong women involved in this police force!) -- but with a lot of death and complications along the way. For a review of CRIMINAL, check here. Thanks, Karin, for stopping by to answer questions about the book and your writing!

1. In CRIMINAL you've shown how the crimes of the past have festered, erupting in crimes in the present -- and possibly in Will Trent's inability to continue the investigative work that suits him so well. Do you believe that unsolved crimes are always likely to lead to further evil -- or, on the other hand, that their solution is likely to create release from turmoil and nightmare?

Karin Slaughter: I absolutely believe that unsolved crimes not only fester, but lead to other crimes.  Very seldom does a criminal just do one bad thing, then go on to live an exemplary life.  It's human nature to push extremes, and we all tend to have very short memories about bad consequences.  (If you've ever been caught speeding, then never went over the limit again, I'd like to shake your hand)

One of the projects my good friend and fellow author Linda Fairstein is taking on is trying to persuade police departments to test DNA from old rape kits.  There's been a lot of push-back on this for some reasons that are obvious--money and scarce resources--but there's also been a few instances where the local politicians have grumbled that the cases are probably just wives accusing husbands to "get back at them."  What Linda's project has proven is that men who rape once are apt to rape again, so a guy who raped his wife back in the nineties might currently be an anonymous tag of DNA numbers in the databank.  Testing that kit means that guy gets identified and prosecuted, and future victims are saved from his savagery.

2. What were the best routes into Atlanta police history, as you did the massive amounts of research that fed this book of policing "then and now"?

Karin Slaughter: I found a dissertation written by a grad student back in the seventies.  She rode around for two years with Atlanta police officers and then she culled all her data and anecdotes to investigate how women were integrated into policing and the effect (if any) that they had.  It was a fascinating read, mostly because it was written in the 1970s, so there wasn't the usual struggle for political correctness.  She just laid it out how it was.  I also spoke with many different police officers--female and male--who came up during that time.  It was fascinating to hear about their struggles, and I hope that I did their stories justice.  They were trailblazers, and they had no idea at the time what they were doing for women not just in policing, but everywhere.  In the 1960s, female athletes were made to stand nude in front of men who worked for the Olympic committee to prove that they were, in fact, female.  Now, there are more women on the US Olympic team than men and no one bats an eye.

3. No woman rises to the top without learning to handle sexual harassment, right? The way Amanda Wagner and Evelyn Mitchell must, in the Will Trent series? So -- what have you faced in this way yourself, and how did you learn to deal with it?

Karin Slaughter: The thriller field is a wonderful one to be in, but it's certainly male-dominated.  I think the biggest problem is that no one really talks about that fact.  No one asks why women are rarely nominated for awards.  No one asks why they are routinely ignored for the top speaking honors at some of our conventions.  No one asks why they are continually left out of "best of" short story collections or not asked to appear on panels.  Considering that women comprise around 80% of readers and women tend to do all the grunt work in organizing conventions and such, it seems like we'd be more keen to celebrate ourselves.  There are some very, very good men who try to level the playing field--Lee Child, John Connolly, Mark Billingham, and many others, but for the most part, we either toil in collegiate obscurity or get compliments like, "You write like a man."  Which, I suppose is a way of saying, "Wow, who would'a guessed a woman could write well!"

On the other hand, Kathy Reichs, Tess Gerritsen, Lisa Gardner, Ruth Rendell, PD James, Patricia Cornwell, Tana French, Denise Mina, Gillian Flynn...these ladies sell a TON of books.  I think if you asked them which they would prefer: the accolades or the sales, they'd choose the sales.  My druthers would be for them to have both.  The first American detective novel was written by a woman named Metta Fuller Victor.  Not many people know her name.  Poe, Hammet, Chandler--those are the names that are celebrated.  Our history seems to be weighted against remembering great women.

4. Right now, the idea that sexual criminals grow from molested children is socially a "hot" notion in America? Do you think it holds up? And, critically for the developments in CRIMINAL, what happens to the children of serial killers, whether they know their parentage or not?

Karin Slaughter: No, I don't think it holds up at all, and it does a disservice to abused children to say so--"hey, kid, sorry about what happened, but you're probably gonna grow up to do the same thing to a child, so let's just assume you're bad."  It also in some ways excuses the behavior of the predator--as if there's no free will involved. The fact is that one in four girls and one in six boys has been sexually molested.  If you do the math, we would be covered up in pedophiles.  What we should worry about more is the toxic environments that help cover up the actions of pedophiles.  More women and children are in slavery now than ever before in our history.  When the Super Bowl is held, children are shipped in from around the country--sometimes the world--to service the sexual deviants who pay their pimps.  This is commonly known among all police forces.  And yet, we don't hire enough officers to police this.  We don't hire enough judges.  We don't hire enough parole officers.  We don't spend enough on schools and teachers and social services, and then we act outraged when child sexual predators thrive in these conditions. 

The DSM says that pedophilia is a mental illness.  It's not created from scratch.  It's not automatically passed down from parent to child.  Nor is being a serial killer.  Charles Manson fathered several children.  So did John Wayne Gacy.  So did the Green River Killer.  Their kids, to my knowledge, are good people with a horrible, horrible cross to bear.

5. As you craft crime, harassment, and corruption scenes in practically your own backyard -- the city of Atlanta, Georgia -- do you feel the city's resonance changing within yourself and your own ways of experiencing it?

Karin Slaughter: I love Atlanta and cannot imagine myself living anywhere else.  Like all major cities, we have crime.  As a crime writer, that's not altogether a bad thing!  I always keep in mind, though, that the crimes I write about are real crimes.  I never take one single crime and transfer it straight into a book.  I change things, I make alterations, because I don't want to exploit a person's horrific experience.  Someone out there is a real victim.  The impact of the crime resonates to family members, the community, the cops who investigate, the reporters who cover the story--they all feel it and they all know that a life has been either lost of inexplicably changed.

6. That question we all ask, after we devour a book as compelling as CRIMINAL: What's next?

Karin Slaughter: Well, I can't say much, but...Unseen will be out this time next year (2013).  Will has to go undercover, which is creating all sorts of problems in his personal life--especially because one of the cops he's investigating is Lena Adams.

Tomorrow (Aug. 13): Karin Slaughter Interview!

Don't miss it -- Karin Slaughter talks about her newest and deepest police procedural, CRIMINAL, a hefty and impressive detective saga that covers two generations and paints a compelling image of women's entry into the Atlanta, Georgia, police forces. Challenges, catastrophes, courage, and success ... check in here tomorrow.

Calendar Alert: Eliot Pattison Tonight; Karin Slaughter August 13; Martín Espada Sept. 4

There's still time to toss out your usual Sunday evening schedule and get to Kingdom Books today for our 7 p.m. visit from Eliot Pattison, author of three mystery series, whose book THE SKULL MANTRA won an Edgar Award. You won't see this author touring -- working as an attorney and committed to writing, he stays mostly private. So if you're in or near Vermont today, come on over. Direction in the right-hand column.

Karin Slaughter's new book CRIMINAL is a stunning two-generation mystery, one of the best I've read with such a wide scope of time and effect, set in Atlanta, GA. The author is giving a questions-and-answers session right here on the Kingdom Books review blog, on Monday August 13. You may be startled by some of her responses! And you'll get to know her work from a fresh direction.

If you're a mystery reader/collector and you know the name Martín Espada, you're riding a second horse -- because this outstanding Massachusetts (and Puerto Rican) author is 100% poet. From time to time, I can't resist reviewing a notable collection. And THE TROUBLE BALL makes me long for a chance to hear Espada read the poems aloud, as I already know what a fierce and wonderful reading he can provide. A quick look at his website suggests I'll be able to catch up on his schedule, after the September 4 release of the book. If you want to savor what rebellion, passion, and well-combed memory can do in the hands of a gifted wordsmith, here's the event link: http://www.martinespada.net/Readings.html

Crime in the City: Karin Slaugher's CRIMINAL Takes Fire from the Past

Maybe you caught the great interview with crime fiction author-par-excellence Karin Slaughter today on National Public Radio, part of NPR's traditional "Crime in the City" series. If not, you can read it at the radio website here, or even click the "Listen" button there to hear it, word for word.

It's a great forum for Slaughter, whose relationship with her fiction isn't just through her characters -- it's also with the locations she's chosen: Grant County, Georgia, for one series she writes, and Atlanta for her Will Trent series. CRIMINAL is the latest in the Will Trent books. (The others are Triptych, Fracture, Undone, Broken, Fallen, and Snatched.)

But stop! This is not a guy-focused book, even though the "emotional autopsy" it offers of dyslexic and scrappy investigator Will Trent rips open many of the part-healed wounds on this long-running character. Instead, CRIMINAL rocks back and forth between the 1970s -- when Slaughter's female leads Amanda Wagner  (Will's boss in the "now" of the series) and Wagner's partner Evelyn Mitchell were among the handful of women pioneers in the city's rough, racist, and blatantly sexist police force -- and today, when Amanda's abrupt orders and detours forced on Will suggest she's punishing him.

Or protecting him.

For more than 400 pages, Slaughter spins a two-generation epic of the Atlanta investigators. Her taut narrative paints with a knife tip the look of harrassed and tortured women, then and now. Even the most incidental seeming character, like drug-addicted Lucy in an early chapter, comes through with vivid reality and piercing questions:

Just like that, he dropped Lucy like trash in the street.

Maybe she was trash. Maybe she deserved to be abandoned. Because once the rush wore off, once the highs turned less intense and the lows became almost unbearable, what was there left to Lucy Bennett but a life on the street?

With consummate craft, Slaughter opens a window into Amanda Wagner's past, her naive embrace of police work, her father's near-unbearable pressure to protect her in the force -- yet keeps the present-day female head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation shuttered, mysterious, and nail-bitingly frustrating to Will as he staggers around the edges of a serial murder sequence that he knows far too well -- it matches what he's seen and investigated years before. Matches it exactly. So why won't Amanda Wagner let him work the case?

Ramping the tension further is the question of whether Will's survival from a nightmare infancy and a harsh childhood has room in it for emotional attachment to a young doctor, Sara Linton, who seems to be more easily allowed into his boss's life than his own. Will brings a terrible legacy to the fragile romantic opportunity:

Will Trent had never been alone in someone else's home before unless that person was dead. As with many things in his life, he was aware that this was a trait he shared with a lot of serial killers. Fortunately, Will was an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation so the empty bathrooms he searched and the deserted bedrooms he tossed all fell under the category of intrusions for the greater good.

This revelation didn't help ease his mind as he walked through Sarah Linton's apartment.

Remember those fat novels that took you through generations of family in the Australian Outback? CRIMINAL has just as much emotional resonance -- in only two time periods, forty years ago and now. And you know the endless sexual harrassment faced by officers Rizzoli and Isles in Tess Gerritsen's books and in Patricia Cornwall's forensic epics? CRIMINAL digs deeper by calling up the vicious anti-women stances of "men's work" in the 1970s, when Civil Rights legislation allowed women a way to squeeze into the openings being demanded for men of color.

Most of all, most important, CRIMINAL provides a tense rapid pace, sharp twists of plot, and characters whose hope of redemption depends squarely on whether the crimes taking place can be solved and the criminals successfully brought to justice. Even though the justice might be rough.

I'll be re-reading this one. Karin Slaughter's just raised the bar for pulling the corruption and devastation of the past, into the blossoming of today's violent response. And for showing how it might -- if enough determined and vigilant officers work together -- be stopped.

Book blog note: Watch for some Q&A with Slaughter here, during the week of August 13. If you've read CRIMINAL, add a comment to this post with pertinent questions you've got about the book and the author. If you haven't read it -- you have two weeks in front of you. Ready, set -- read!