Karin Slaughter - Triptych (2006)
Reviewed by David J. Montgomery
Most readers love an ongoing series. We enjoy following the lives of the characters from book to book, catching up with them like old friends. But sometimes that can lead to a certain familiar or even stale quality. In those cases, writing a non-series book (a "stand-alone" in publishing lingo) can be just the thing to break an author out of a slump and get the creative spark flourishing again.
Whether thriller author Karin Slaughter needed a change of pace is a matter for debate. But it is clear that, after writing five books in her well-received Grant County series, she has broken away in a new direction with her latest book, Triptych, and has produced one of 2006's most remarkable achievements.
Michael Ormewood, an Atlanta police detective, is investigating the murder of a prostitute when he discovers that several other young women have been killed in a similar fashion. When the detective is joined on the case by Will Trent, an agent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the reader gradually begins to discover what's really going on, and that realization is a shocker.
One-third of the way into the book, Slaughter changes the point of view from the detective to ex-con John Shelley, a man who did 20 years in prison for rape and murder. Now free, he's trying to rebuild his life and eke out a meager existence. We are presented with his crimes as a fait accompli, but gradually we begin to wonder. Was he really guilty? Has he been rehabilitated? And how does he relate, if at all, to the current crimes that are the focus of the story?
After establishing that character, Slaughter shifts gears yet again, taking us into the mind of Special Agent Trent, another complex and conflicted soul whose whole life is dedicated to protecting victims, a futile attempt at sparing others the kind of pain he suffered as a child.
Joining him is vice detective Angie Polaski, a woman he has loved all his life, but with whom he is unable to form a loving relationship. Polaski spends her nights working undercover, posing as a prostitute, and she's seen more than any person ought to see in a lifetime. She wants to help Trent in his investigation, but she's so jaded and wounded that even she can't discern the true identity of the killer.
As in most of Slaughter's work, the characters who populate this story are flawed and damaged people, often the victims or perpetrators of abuse, generally unable to form normal, healthy bonds with each other. They are alone, lonely and alienated. That theme lends a real sense of power to her books, but also a pervasive feeling of anguish.
It can be hard to read a story like this, so bare does it lay the pain of its characters, pain that is all too familiar in the world we live in. At the same time, the characters in Triptych are so real and well-developed that the reader can't help but feel empathy and sympathy for them, and thus we are drawn even deeper into this ingenious plot.
This is easily the best thing Slaughter has written, a novel of power and substance that is shocking and painful at times, but also gripping and resonant. Triptych launches a major new phase in her career, and it's a delight to behold.
Posted by David J. Montgomery in Book Reviews | Permalink
Comments
I agree with this review. I have read all of Karin's novels and anticipate the next Grant County story but this was a great change of pace. If you have not visited Karin's website I would recommend it.
Posted by: Gay Tomas | Oct 11, 2006 10:50:50 AM
