Fallen by Karin Slaughter

On an ordinary spring day, Special Agent Faith Mitchell of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation returns home to a nightmare. Expecting to find her mother minding Faith's new baby daughter Emma, she is horrified to discover Emma locked in the shed, her mother's safe open, her gun missing and a trail of blood to the front door. Without waiting for back-up, Faith enters the house to a scene of carnage. It has been torn apart and a man lies dead in a pool of blood. She stumbles across two more intruders, and within minutes they too are shot dead. And when the Atlanta police force turns up, Faith has some difficult questions to answer. But she has some desperate questions of her own. What were the killers searching for? Ex-Atlanta police chief Evelyn Mitchell was once under investigation by Faith's partner Will Trent. Is her mother directly involved this time, and where is she now? With Faith suspended from duty, Will, together with the help of Dr Sara Linton, must piece together the fragments of a brutal and complicated case - and catch a deeply troubled and vicious murderer with only one thing on his mind. To keep on killing until the truth is finally revealed...

Karin Slaughter is one of those authors that I look forward to reading their latest novel as soon as it is releasaed - I don't wait for it to go to paperback, I have to have the hardback. And this has defintely been work the wait!

Faith Mitchell returns home from a course which has over run to find a trail of blood, her baby daughter locked in the shed and her mother missing. What follows is a lot of family history being dragged up, past behaviour explained and secrets being revealled.

This is the third book in the Georgia series (following Genesis and Unbroken) and combines the two sets of characters from Slaughter's books: Sara Linton and Will Trent.

As always with Slaughter's novels, there is a strong crime story which is intermingled with the personal lives of the main characters. This book is no different: Faith Mitchell is Will Trent's police partner and she has to be treated as a suspect. Will Trent is married, but in an unhappy marriage, Sara Linton is a widow and has feelings, which she won't admit, for Will Trent.

The book starts with a crime which has many repercussions to all involved. Life will never be the same for Faith as secrets are uncovered and life will change forever. The story is hard hitting and there are twists and turns throughout the whole book. I never guessed the final twist - the secret to be revealled - and I think that this is a big part of karin's books, the great storylines she creates.

I would definitely recommend this book to lovers of crime and thrillers. Although this book is the third in the Georgia Series and also features Sara Linton, who is the main character in many books, it is not necessary to read the others first, although fans will realise there are connections to previous books within Fallen.

I would like to thank the publishers for sending me this book to review.