Indelible

// Indelible: making marks that cannot easily be removed.

This entry was just okay.

The book begins with a hostage situation at the police station. Jeff is hurt and needs medical attention in a hurry. To make matters worse, a group of children were touring the station and got caught up in the fray. Sara is on the scene as well and must do her best to take care of Jeff while negotiators try to figure out what to do. This is timeline one.

Timeline two flashes back to the past, when Sara and Jeff first became an item. Jeff is quick to take her on a road trip to see how the relationship will progress. They make a quick detour to his hometown and are caught up in a murder investigation. Sara has the opportunity to tour the town, learn about Jeff's questionable past, and offer her medical (and emotional) services to help identify the killer.

The dueling timelines did not work for me. I like how we essentially get two murder mysteries wrapped up in one, but I thought the pacing suffered a bit in the process. Karin Slaughter has pulled this same process off in many other books; it just did not have the same impact on me.

I'll say one thing about Sara: She sure is an understanding partner. It's kind of endearing how in love she is with Jeff, especially after the red flags start to mount into a heap. Most other characters would have probably left Jeff in the dust the moment they met his friends, learned about his reputation, or met his charming mother.

In typical fashion, the ending shines, and the conversations are thrilling. I just wish the in-between sections would have been a bit better. I'm curious to see how the next one shapes up.

Extra

The continued adventures and quite a bit of backlog about Sara Linton and Jeffrey Tolliver. This time they are held hostage in the police station and Lena has a chance to make a comeback.

The more I read this series, the more surprises come about the lovestruck pair. Jeffrey's past is quite different than just growing up poor. Sara should be half crippled by now, the injuries she gone through - in just four books. The brutality Lena went through previously is still having unbelievable effect on her. I thought she would bounce back quicker or better and so did Jeffrey, I guess.

I enjoyed this book though and am on my way to finishing the series. I believe I will be sad when I do. The characters are strong and I never know what is going to happen next.

Indelible book #4 in the Grant County series has been my least favorite. In Karen Slaughter's style, the book opens up, and almost immediately, we are thrust into the action when armed bandits invade the police station of Grant County. She takes us on a journey to the past, explaining how Jefferey and Sara's love story began. I didn't find it much of a love story. Jefferey is the town playboy and a reformed bad boy. It is almost annoying because it is a trope of the good girl falling in love with the bad boy.

I was really irritated with this whole book! I did not care about the past. There seemed to be way too many things happening at the same time and it was just too coincidental that it happened just when Jeffrey revisits the town he hadn't been to in decades or whatnot. And I can't figure out why Sara kept staying! Ugh. Everything just seemed like it wasn't necessary.

I love all of Slaughter's books so far but this one lacked the pace of the previous ones. I still enjoyed it and liked finding out some of the back story to Jeffrey but due to the switching between the two time lines, I felt like the suspense wasn't as consistent as all of the other books. Still a good read though! :)