Book Review: Beyond Reach

Spoilers!

If you set a book in 2007, writing about Nazis and the prevalence of meth in American communities, I would’ve assumed the latter would be more prescient for 2024 than the Nazis. Alas. (Meth is still prevalent, and is actually statistically worse than it was in 2007, but heroin is in another stratosphere.)

All of that is to say, I’ve grown quite fond of Karin Slaughter’s writing over the last two years of reading her now, and that’s no different with 2007’s Beyond Reach, featuring her characters Sara Linton (pediatrician and helpful coroner), Police Chief James Tolliver (also Linton’s ex-husband … and then, current husband), and Detective Lena Adams (a bit of a rebellious character, who Tolliver treats like a daughter) set in Georgia. Slaughter’s writing style is engrossing, engaging, and intense. Even though her mass market paperbacks tend to clock in north of 450 pages, they don’t feel like long reads. They feel like just enough to tell the story she wants to tell and take us on the journey she has in mind.

Beyond Reach if it’s anything, is a character study of Lena Adams. She was a twin; the twin died. She didn’t know her parents, and was raised by her uncle, who was addicted to drugs. She had no real direction in life or proper guardrails until she became a police officer and under the learning tree (and protection) of Tolliver. But it’s more than how the family tree meets the learning tree; Adams is also mentally and morally grappling with whether she is worth saving in the first place. Because of her background and her choices therein, such as a sleeping with a Nazi, who also abused her, Adams thinks she’s not worth the trouble Tolliver and Linton are about to be entangled in to save her. The arc for her in this book is about discovering that her bad choices don’t define her, nor does her upbringing. That said, the ex-boyfriend Nazi does factor into the plot, too, and perhaps the ending.

Adams’ uncle, Hank, is back on drugs and dealing with shady Nazis, and then she’s implicated in a fiery murder and is being watched over by a seemingly out-of-his-depth sheriff. This is what brings Tolliver and Linton to town, and Adams only complicates matters by absconding from the law. Linton, for her part, is also doubting herself. She’s being hit with a malpractice lawsuit after one of her patients died, and the parents are suing her for not informing them of their son’s awful prognosis sooner. None of which is helping Sara’s confidence with Adams’ case or the fact that her and Tolliver have decided to adopt a child. She’s doubting whether she can even be a good mother at this point. Meanwhile, Tolliver wants to be the bad-ass police detective, but he’s overprotective of both Linton and Adams, and he doesn’t know if he can trust the sheriff or not.

Well, he shouldn’t have! Turns out the sheriff is running a methamphetamine cartel with Nazis in the small town, and the sheriff almost kills Linton and Adams, but Adams is able to save them both.

Before I get to the next part, my only criticism of that section of the book, compromising 99 percent of the story, is while I understand, as I outlined, Adams and Linton are both doubting themselves and the symmetry of that is interesting, including how they overcome their doubt, I also thought there was perhaps a smidge too much doubting from them, particularly Linton, who seemed to do an awful lot of crying throughout the book. Nonetheless …

We, as readers, think we’re done with the book. Tolliver and Linton have survived the Nazis and beat the meth-peddlers. Better yet, Linton received news their application went through and they’ll be adopting a boy. Tolliver goes to retrieve paperwork in the mailbox only to be blown up and killed by a bomb. Whaaaa?!

So, my first Slaughter novel was Faithless, the previous book in the series. Then, I’m an idiot and read 2019’s The Last Widow, Slaughter’s Will Trent series, which then weaves in Linton. In that book, she mentions her husband being blown up by a mailbox bomb. I sort of spoiled myself, and only remembered as soon as Tolliver started heading to the mailbox at the end. Dangit! But now, I definitely need to read the actual follow up to those events, 2009’s Undone.

Slaughter is so, so good.