BROKEN represents the second time I’ve combined the characters from my Grant County Series and Atlanta Series, but it’s the first time I’ve put Will Trent in my fictional south Georgia town. I was a little nervous about seeing Heartsdale through Will’s eyes, because I love the town so much that I didn’t want a stranger telling me bad things about it. Surprisingly, it ended up being very freeing, because I got to show a different side of the town.
There are a lot of background characters that readers haven’t really seen before. I also got to talk a bit about rural poverty, which is a subject that doesn’t often come up. Allison Spooner begins the story with a long trudge around Lake Grant, and we get a picture of someone for whom the American dream has been broken. Detective Lena Adams is back, too, and while a lot has changed for her since the end of Beyond Reach, my sixth Grant County novel, a lot about her is still the same. She’s a very complex character to write, and I’ve always enjoyed some of her more exasperating behavior. My hope is that readers will go back and forth between wanting to root for her and wanting to grab her and shake some sense into her.
For her part, Sara Linton wants to send Lena to prison for past and present crimes. She’s back in Grant for the first time in four years. We see a very different Sara, someone caught between who she was and the person she’s trying to be. Will’s job is made a lot harder for being caught between these two strong-minded women.
As always, the thing that interests me most as a writer is not so much what happens as why. Crime is a great leveler. It can touch the wealthiest and the poorest citizens. How we respond shows our character—whether we’re strong or whether we’re irreparably broken.
Editor's Note: Karin Slaughter is the bestselling author of several novels, including BROKEN, the most recent installment of her Grant County Series.
