Karin Slaughter | Fractured (Will Trent #2)

The Book: 

Fractured by Karin Slaughter
Published July 29th 2008 by Delacorte Press
Date re-read: December 15, 2022

The Characters: 

Will Trent, GBI agent

Faith Mitchell, Atlanta PD detective
Angie Polaski, vice cop
Amanda Wagner, Will’s boss

Get it on Bookshop.org | Amazon


Welcome! If you ended up here after watching the new Will Trent TV show, I’m glad you’re here. I adore these books, and am so excited for the TV show to bring them more traction. I love talking about them, and can’t wait for more fans!

As of right now, I haven’t watched the show yet, but when I do I plan on writing a comparison post between the books and the movies. I’ll link it here when it’s written.

If you’re new to this series, I strongly recommend you read the Grant County books first. I have a post of the order in which you should read them here.

Please note that expanding the spoiler link below WILL spoil the book, and may also spoil some aspects of the show. Proceed with caution if you do choose to click the link!


The Plot (from Goodreads):

When Atlanta housewife Abigail Campano comes home unexpectedly one afternoon, she walks into a nightmare. A broken window, a bloody footprint on the stairs and, most devastating of all, the horrifying sight of her teenage daughter lying dead on the landing, a man standing over her with a bloody knife. The struggle which follows changes Abigail’s life forever.

When the local police make a misjudgement which not only threatens the investigation but places a young girl’s life in danger, the case is handed over to Special Agent Will Trent of the Criminal Apprehension Team – paired with detective Faith Mitchell, a woman who resents him from their first meeting.

But in the relentless heat of a Georgia summer, Will and Faith realise that they must work together to find the brutal killer who has targeted one of Atlanta’s wealthiest, most privileged communities – before it’s too late.

Click here for book spoilers for Fractured
Book spoilers ahead–if you haven’t yet read Fractured, I suggest you turn back now.

The dead girl wasn’t Emma Campano, but her best friend Kayla. The man that Abigail killed wasn’t the killer–he’d been stabbed by the killer too. Someone else had killed Kayla, stabbed the boy, and kidnapped Emma.

The sperm in Kayla’s vagina came back with a match from the sex offender database: from the English teacher at the girls’ school, Evan Bernard. He wasn’t convicted, so his DNA shouldn’t have been in the database (which is why this didn’t show up on his background check to begin teaching). He had been grooming his students for years, starting with Mary Clark, another teacher at the girls’ school. When he assaulted Mary, another student acted as his alibi: Warren Greer. Faith was able to convince Mary to tell her this information.

Faith and Will quickly realized that Bernard had an accomplice when he didn’t leave the school to make the ransom call.

Will found a strange powder at the Campano house. He didn’t want to get it tested through normal channels since the results would take too long, so he got Faith to ask someone at the college to test it off the record. The powder was from a construction site fixing the water main on Peachtree. Will put the pieces together to implicate Warren Greer, who Bernard had introduced to the girls. I don’t remember how Will would up on the construction site or how he realized that the powder was Shotcrete. I also don’t remember why they were able to initially arrest Greer.

They realized from the school security tape that Bernard had left school on his lunch break and changed his clothes. Will got him to say that he had thrown them out, which was enough for Faith to find them in the garbage to get a warrant to search his house. They didn’t find any official evidence, only Bernard’s creepy young girl’s bedroom.

Bernard had instructed Greer to kidnap Emma for the ransom money. Kayla and Bernard were a couple, and she was in on the kidnapping (it might have been her idea).

Greer was also dyslexic and used colors to keep track of things, the same as Will. He killed himself in custody, but before he died he hinted to Will how he kept things organized. Will found DVD evidence of the crime, since Greer had recorded everything he was instructed to make sure he didn’t make a mistake. The recordings were enough to convict Bernard.

At the time of the kidnapping, Greer and Kayla were bickering as Kayla was making fun of him for being stupid. Greer had stabbed Adam by mistake while fighting with Kayla, and also killed Kayla out of anger. He did successfully kidnap Emma, but panicked and left Kayla and Adam behind.

The Ending:

Faith was hired by the GBI as Will’s partner. Angie showed up but didn’t do anything awful in this book.

The Review: 

To come!


I’ve also posted spoilers for all of the Grant County books, so check this link or the search bar to find what you’re looking for.

If you’re looking for a matching set of the Will Trent books, most of them are included in this set, which I purchased recently and love!

Will Trent books in order

*Once again, I do recommend starting with the Grant County books. See this post.

Triptych
Fractured
Undone (also titled Genesis)
Broken
Fallen
Snatched (novella)
Criminal
Busted (novella)
Unseen
The Kept Woman
Cleaning the Gold (novella)
The Last Widow
The Silent Wife
After That Night

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