Murder in Ansley Park

At the top of the stairs, she sees a man with a knife standing over what she assumes is her daughter Emma's bloody body. As the man starts toward her, she trips and falls down the stairs. The man follows, a struggle ensues, and Abigail somehow manages to strangle the intruder. When the police arrive, it seems clear that it's a case of self-defense and that the dead man had killed Abigail's daughter.

That solution is too simple for the author. What if the dead girl is not Emma Campano? And what if the dead man is not a killer? And, if these things are true, where is Emma Campano? Has she been kidnapped?

Slaughter's thrillers are never uncomplicated and "Fractured" is no exception. Will Trent, the protagonist of "Triptych," a novel about a serial killer in Atlanta who bites off the tongues of his victims, returns as a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent. Will is assigned to the case with Faith Mitchell, an Atlanta police detective who hates Will's guts. So does most the Atlanta Police Department. It seems that Will had led an internal investigation that resulted in seven cops losing their jobs in a corruption scandal. One of those was Faith's mother, who had been forced to retire from her job as police captain.

Will has another problem other than working with a woman who despises him. He is severely dyslexic, a condition he has managed to hide from nearly everyone, and he is terrified that his partner will discover that he can't read.

"There was a teacher early on who had suggested dyslexia, but Will had never been diagnosed so there was no telling if he had a real disorder or if he was just painfully stupid —- something subsequent teachers agreed was the issue. . . . He couldn't focus on a page of text for more than an hour without getting a blinding headache. On good days, he could read on a second-grade level. Bad days were unbearable. If he was tired or upset, the words swirled like quicksand."

Will survives as a kind of functionally illiterate Columbo, asking lots of questions, recording the answers on a digital recorder, and using voice-activated software with spell check to print out his reports.

As Slaughter skillfully adds twist after twist to an already intricate plot, she peels back the layers of her characters to show their fears, their doubts and their motivations. And she goes behind the closed doors of a family who seem to have a perfect life to reveal the lies and dysfunctions they hide from their friends and neighbors.

These elements alone would make a satisfying police procedural, but in Slaughter's novels there are always deeper issues at stake. Once again, she returns to her recurring theme of violence and the way it affects our lives, whether we live in a crack neighborhood, the suburbs or Ansley Park. In Slaughter's fictional world, no one is safe from violence and its ripple effects. Just like in real life.

Don O'Briant is former president of the Southern Book Critics Circle.

FICTION

"Fractured" by Karin Slaughter. Delacorte Press. 388 pages. $25.

Bottom line: An Atlanta whodunit that delves deep into dysfunctional families.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Karin Slaughter discusses "Fractured." 7 p.m. July 29. Barnes & Noble, 5141 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 800, Forum Shopping Center, Norcross. 770-209-4244.