Pieces of Her is a thriller by Karin Slaughter that is pretty good but kind of felt longer than necessary.
Andrea and her mother, Laura, are having some lunch at a diner in a shopping mall when a mass shooter breaks up the repast with an intent to kill. When her daughter is threatened, Laura moves with unusual efficiency for a middle-aged speech therapist and dispatches the killer with surprising brutality. Laura’s seemingly heroic actions make the news, which brings some troubles from a buried past of which her daughter has no knowledge. A pretty harrowing attempt is made on Laura’s life, and Andy kind of returns the favor by saving her life. Andy is on a search to discover the history that her mother has kept secret. Andy finds that murder and fanaticism have followed her mother for some time. She also learns of a family she never knew she had and may wish she had not found out.
Slaughter makes liberal use of flashbacks to fill in the strange and tragic history of Laura Oliver when she had another name. Slaughter has been in the writing game for a while, and she is an interesting writer. I can see why she has her fans, but this novel sort of dragged for me.
The basic plot is pretty good, and Slaughter does toss in some pretty clever reveals. Slaughter does sometimes let the story get a little bogged down with exposition.
I found the revelation of Laura’s true identity to be somewhat creative. I will try to avoid spoilers, but some of the standard tropes did not appear. Laura is not a retired spy or something like that.
Slaughter did a decent job of keeping me guessing as to how certain people were significant.
It’s another novel that provided some solid entertainment without it being uniquely memorable. It is more than likely that this will not be my last foray into the works of Karin Slaughter
More literary mystery and mayhem is forthcoming with Walter Mosley’s White Butterfly.
Reviews, Musings, and Other Things... 