Kisscut [Hardcover]

Events take place as before in a small Georgia town and begin with a violent confrontation in the parking lot of the town's skating rink when a teenage girl threatens to shoot a boy only to be shot by the town sheriff Jeffrey Tolliver .At first it is assumed the killing was due to the aborted foetus which is found in the venue's rest room being that of the dead girl and that the intended victim was the father.
This turns out to be untrue and the case is linked to a child abuse ring and to incestuous family relationships within the outwardly respectable and God fearing community . The true theme of the novel is "the worm in the bud "--how a respectable facade can hide moral corruption and a lack of self -knowledge ;the chief abuser is persuaded he is motivated by love rather than cynical and inexcusable exploitative impulses.
It is a tawdry tale ,heavy and oppressive with an air of sleaze and corruption hanging like a pall over the whole novel.There is physical and forensic violence here but the real violence is one of atmosphere -a miasma of corruption hangs over the events described in the book and the realisation of this quality is the ultimate triumph of the novel .It makes it honest but does make for comfortable reading and some will find the subject matter inherently disquieting .
The events of the previous novel I referred to earlier that impact on the book are more to do with character than plot -Tolliver and town pediatrician / pathologist Sar Linton are striving to re-ignite their relationship , hard driven cop Lena is still suffering the trauma of rape which she endured in Blindsighted and struggling to rebuild her professional and personal life .
This is well written but the absence of any lighness in atmosphere or incident make the book heavy going .
Slaughte is immensely talented but for my money need to lighten up a little -it would throw the themes of her stories into starker relief but adding a contarsting shade .

Returning to the Georgia-based setting are pediatrician and part-time coroner, Sara Linton, her ex-husband and police chief, Jeff Tolliver, and police detective, Lena Adams, who is still recovering from a brutal rape and attack depicted in the previous book. Sara interested me a great deal because of her relationship with her mother, but Lena, whose sister was murdered in the first book, wasn't as appealing. In fact, she's downright unpleasant at times. Maybe that's the point, as the second book explores.

Anyway, Kisscut starts off with the police shooting of Jenny, a 13-year old who threatened to kill boy outside a roller rink. Clearly distraught, the girl was last seen exiting the restroom... where the tattered remains of a pre-term fetus are found, flushed in the toilet. Are the two connected? Did Jenny intend to kill the father of her baby?

The story isn't just about Jenny, the baby (which actually isn't hers) and her attempted murder of the boy. In fact, it's a far more sordid, brutal tale of extensive child abuse, self-mutilation, incest and pornography. Slaughter thankfully doesn't go into explicit detail, though she still manages to sicken and horrify through alluded passages. It's a twisted, frustrating journey that layers trauma upon trauma, discovery upon discovery. The ultimate culprits aren't the usual suspects, and that makes the story even more difficult to handle.

For the most part, the text was engaging with a good balance between the A story (the mystery) and the B stories (Lena's struggle to accept what happened to her and move on, Sara/Jeff's rekindled relationship) with strong description and dialogue. Slaughter did improve from the first book, though Lena is still very much an angry, unlikable woman, and I haven't decided yet if I want to read the third book in the series.

For those who can stomach the actual story, Kisscut is a worthwhile read for an above average mystery... but it's not one I'd ever want to read or think about again.