Bantam Dell, New York 2008

Karin Slaughter has written more than a dozen “New York Times Bestsellers” and “Beyond Reach” is one of them. Why this is so, I cannot understand and would never have finished this thriller, had it not been recommended to me.

I do not know what Slaughter`s agenda really is. Maybe she wants to strike out against small town drug (meth) abuse and corruption. But why her investigators, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver and his Detectve Lena Adams are described as helpless and ineffective, being played by the bad guys, victims rather than active detectives, neither convinces the reader nor helps the plot. And Slaughter does not carry her surname in vain, in fact, splatter and cruelty is her main narrative element.