Beyond Reach (Grant County #6) by Karin Slaughter

Sara Linton–resident medical examiner/pediatrician in Grant County, Georgia, has plenty of hardship to deal with, including defending herself in a heartbreaking malpractice suit. So when her husband, Police chief Jeffery Tolliver, learns that his friend and coworker detective Lena Adams has been arrested for murder and needs Sara’s help, she is not sure she can handle the pressure of it all. 

But soon Sara and Jeffery are sitting through evidence, peeling back the layers of a mystery that grows darker by the day–until an intricate web of betrayal and vengeance begins to unravel. And suddenly the lives of Sara, Lena, and Jeffery are hanging by the slenderest of threads.

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Oh Ms. Slaughter, I thought you were better than a cruel, almost cheap ending.

Beyond Reach is the final novel in the Grant County series and I’m sad that it didn’t live up to my high exceptions in this amazing series. In my opinion, I feel that this was the weakest novel in the series.

This novel is heavily focused on detective, Lena Adams, who is Slaughter’s most controversial character. I have such a love/hate relationship with Lena and of course that relationship continues in Beyond Reach.

Lena returns to her hometown and throughout the novel we are following Lena’s journey from 3 days earlier. In present day (3 days later), Jeffrey (the police chief and Lena’s boss) receives a call from the police saying that Lena has been arrested. Jeffrey and Sara go to get Lena and she is in really bad shape. They then have to piece together what happened in those 3 days.

I was annoyed that the novel didn’t take place in Grant County and didn’t feature the characters that I have grown to enjoy and love. There was a whole new cast of characters and I didn’t enjoy them as much, or care about them at all.

I found that the novel was just ok and then I got to the final chapter. I knew something was coming since my husband just finished the book before me and he told me that I had to read it ASAP so we could discuss. I’m not sure about how I feel about the ending. It wasn’t something that I expected, but it seemed to be so out of left field that I don’t understand why Slaughter did it.

For those who have finished the series, I would suggest going onto Slaughter’s blog and reading the letter to her fans about why she choose that ending, it helped me a bit to understand her actions – Beyond Reach – Spoiler Letter

3 calculators out of a potential 5. I’m sad that the final novel wasn’t what I was hoping for. I’m excited now to read the Will Trent series (which has characters from Grant County)!

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