Apparently, The Last Widow by Karin Slaughter, featuring the characters Will Trent and Sara Linton, is the NINTH in the Will Trent series…who knew? Apparently, LOTS of people! And I am a sucker for the psychological-thriller-woman-in-danger genre, so it sounded like a good fit for me.
The overview gives three clues: A mysterious kidnapping, a devastating explosion, and a diabolical enemy. So far, so good. I began reading, and was hooked right away as the prologue gave us a panicked mother of an eleven-year-old daughter who saw a white van in a dark parking lot and feared her daughter was about to be kidnapped. As it turned out, the guy in the van wanted her, not her daughter, and she vanishes. A month later, pediatrician/medical examiner Sara Linton and her boyfriend Will Trent, who is with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), are having a romantic moment when explosions rock their world (literally) and send them rushing to the nearby disaster scene. They live in the Atlanta neighborhood near Emory University, two major hospitals, the FBI headquarters, and the CDC, so there are lots of potential targets. On their way to the scene, they happen upon a car crash, stop to help, and then Sara is abducted.
Again, so far, so good. The first half of the book was terrific. The mysterious disappearances and the explosion seemed surely connected, but it took a while for things to come together. Then came the diabolical enemy part, and it all fell apart for me…so much so that I ended up telling someone NOT to read it, because I hated it.
Turns out the diabolical enemy is a cult-leading, hateful white supremacist who is also a misogynistic woman hater (and possibly a pedophile as well?). He and his followers, who were apparently behind the bombings, are planning something HUGE, an “event” that might involve biological warfare (the first kidnap victim was an epidemiologist at the CDC). They have bombs and an arsenal: guns, and lots of them. They were “waving around AR-15s, which were as ubiquitous in Georgia as peaches.”
The early look at this movement and in particular its leader looked like it might be reasonable: your stereotypical white male American terrorist (sad, but true). There is a lot of talk about the reason for the booming number of white supremacist groups: “…what causes historical upticks in membership in white supremacist groups. You said immigration and the economy, but actually, it’s war…men…went off to fight, they came home, and nothing felt the same. To. Their thinking, the government abandoned the. Their women had moved on or grown more independent. Their kids were strangers…they needed someone to blame.”
The bad guys are “…New Nazis, They’re not skinheads. They don’t shave their heads and get tattoos and dress the part. Their point is to blend in…clean-cut guys…in Charlottesville…had all looked so normal until they started chanting about blood and soil and screaming ‘Jews will not replace us’.”
Also “After Charlottesville, their entire world changed. They got validation from the top down.” And up til about halfway into the book, it was gripping. It was reflective of the current situation in the U.S., with validation for hatred and racism coming from the top down. I REALLY enjoyed the first half of the book, and was right there with the threat coming from the newly validated white supremacists. Maybe I should have just stopped there, secure in my certainty that Will would rescue Sara, the horrific event planned by the group would be stopped, and book #10 could take us to our next chapter in the adventures of Will and Sara. But it all went to hell when the leader turned into almost a cartoon figure, and the plot resolution happened as it did. By that time, I almost didn’t care if Sara got out or Will was a hero. It was just too over the top for me.
I admit I do think the real danger in the current U.S. comes from homegrown terrorists who are more and more often comfortable spouting their racist, misogynist and religiously biased rhetoric right out in public – after all, the President does it, so they feel it’s surely okay. And if the book had reflected reality and how it MIGHT be a problem with some type of solution, and the second half had lived up to the promise of the first half. If only. Could have been terrific. Ugh. With thanks to Harper Collins/William Morrow and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for this honest review, this one gets two stars.