BEYOND REACH
by Karin Slaughter
Bantam Dell/Random House
New York, New York
www.randomhouse.com
ISBN: 9780385339476
Paperback, 608 pages, $7.99
Genre: Mystery

Pediatrician/medical examiner Sara Linton is reeling from a vicious malpractice suit and having to close her clinic when her husband, police chief Jeffrey Tollier, receives word that Lena Adams, one of his detectives, has been arrested in Reese, GA. Sara accompanies Jeffrey to the small, backwater town. When they arrive, Lena uses Sara to escape and from that point on manages to stay one step ahead of Jeffrey and the sheriff of Reese. As Jeffrey tries to find Lena, bodies pile up and he and Sara find their own lives threatened. Meanwhile, Lena is trying to locate her Uncle Hank and the man he claims killed her mother when she stumbles upon a group of white supremacists who deal in meth trafficking.

This sixth installment of the Grant County, GA crime series is as gritty and realistic as real life. Slaughter touches upon the devastating effects of methamphetamine on its users and the vicious cruelty of its makers and traffickers. Slaughter adroitly leads the reader through two investigations: Lena as she tracks her uncle and tries to find out what really happened to her mother, and Jeffrey and Sara as they search for Lena. Slaughter provides an ending which is unexpected and which some readers will find traumatic and unsettling.