Phew, Karin Slaughter’s 2019 book, The Last Widow, is eerily prescient in its plot and characters. The book was written two years prior to the events of January 6th, when a bunch of MAGA types, as well as more serious and organized right-wing groups, such as the Oath Keepers, stormed the United States Capitol to disrupt and stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election so former President Donald Trump could stay in office. In Slaughter’s book, a ring-wing group, Invisible Patriot Army, or IPA, a Jim Jones-style group mixed with racism, xenophobia, sexism, and pedophilia (as usual with these groups, concerns about that is often just projection), attacks the George State Capitol with men decked out in military clothing and with AR-15s. Of course, the latter’s goal was also far deadlier: they laced their bullets with weaponized botulism, and originally planned on infecting thousands, if not millions, with the deadly disease.
It was astonishing how accurate and pulled-from-the-headlines Slaughter’s book was in describing right-wing terrorism and what gives rise to it. She definitely did her research. Two strong indicators of someone being susceptible and receptive to a right-wing message (racism, xenophobia, using violence as a means to an end): 1.) abuse and control of women; and 2.) serving in the military. The latter isn’t to suggest everyone who serves in the military is a ring-wing loon, but it is to suggest that sending young men off to fight wars and then expecting men like that to return to the domestic front okay isn’t always going to work out. Such is the case with some of the men in the IPA, including Beau, a man the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, or GBI, is able to use to help infiltrate the IPA.
To rewind a bit, Slaughter’s book features one of her favorite reoccurring characters: Dr. Sara Linton, formerly (when I read her in 2005’s Faithless) a pediatrician and coroner in Grant County, Georgia married to Jeff Tolliver, the police chief. However, at some point in the future, Tolliver was killed by a neo-Nazi bomb attack (aww!). That led Linton to move to Atlanta to work for the GBI as their coroner. Slaughter also started the Will Trent series, following the GBI agent. Eventually, she merged the two, bringing Linton and Trent together as a couple.
The Last Widow’s title is a fun play on the fact of Linton being a widow, but also, the psychopathic ethos of Dash, the leader of IPA, who seeks to create a world where there will be no more widows to the “mongrels” of society. Anyhow, the story gets rolling from the get-go with two bombs set off in Atlanta, and our star characters, Linton and Trent, running toward the bombs (it occurred only blocks from the house they were at), only for both to run right into the culprits behind the bombs, aka the IPA. The culprits are numerous enough to not only thwart Trent, but kidnap Linton, who they will need to help them as a doctor because they’ve been shot, and because the children back at their cult camp are suffering from a measles outbreak. Not surprisingly, a cult like that is opposed to the vaccines that made measles obsolete in the U.S. more than two decades ago. In addition to that, the IPA also abducted a scientist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help them develop and weaponize botulism.
The structure of Slaughter’s book is told in such a fun, engaging, and fast-paced way with the use of time, as we go forward and back in time through the perspective of different characters. I can’t say enough how well Slaughter’s book flowed with its story and action, even with interludes to go deep on right-wing terrorism, or to develop the love story between Linton and Trent (and the family drama with her parents), or even to develop Faith’s character, another GBI agent, and her problems with her terrible two’s toddler. It all meshed so well together and fully rounded out the characters and story being told, i.e., these characters felt real and like they were in a lived-in world. Which, again, because much of this was pulled straight from the headlines (with dramatic flourishes, obviously), that makes sense!
In the end, the cult, as I alluded to, Jim Jonesed themselves, where Dash “tests” the botulism on his own men, women, and children (quite literally his own children), and then they are thwarted in their attack on the Georgia Capitol (not before they are able to still kill and wound dozens) by Will and other GBI agents. One of my favorite absolutely ripped from the headlines moments was Faith, I believe, perpetually feeling frustrated that FBI isn’t doing enough to help them unravel the threads of the IPA to stop them, and it’s heavily implied that from the top (Trump), the FBI agents tasked with typically investigating right-wing terrorism were told to stop focusing so much on right-wing groups, and that unfortunately, too many people for comfort sympathize with them. Also, the FBI is worried about another Ruby Ridge or Waco siege public relations catastrophe.
Overall, I’m so glad I decided to continue my dive into Slaughter by picking up this one at the bookstore. I enjoy the Linton character, and I enjoy the way Slaughter writes her family. It feels real. I also just enjoy her fast-paced writing style and intricate plots. The plots are intricate enough to be interesting without being too intricate as to collapse under their own weight. If you want an eerily prescient book to read, then I highly recommend, The Last Widow.
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