Beyond Reach
Karin Slaughter
Delacorte, Aug 2007, $25.00
ISBN 9780385339476

In Grant County, Georgia, pediatrician Dr. Sara Linton is despondent over the death of her young patient Jimmy Powell, but further stunned when his parents, her friends, sue her for malpractice wrongful death suit. Sadly, the reasons held against her were things she did out of friendship because the prognosis was Jimmy was dying with no chance to be saved.

Three days before Sara's life was opened up for the vultures to pick at, her spouse Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver learns one of his detectives Lena Adams was involved in an explosion that killed a woman in Reese, Georgia. However, Lena left the hospital without telling anyone she was leaving. Jeffrey and Sara head to Reese to peel away the layers and soon connect a thriving methamphetamine business with a local white supremacy group, but that knowledge leaves both their lives in danger.

BEYOND REACH opens with the devastating malpractice suit that grips the audience, but quickly switches gear to the Reese scenario where a detective has gone missing and meth is a way of life. The insight into how meth addiction is destroying rural families is stunning. The incredible ending ties everything back together, as this may be Karin Slaughter's best medical-police procedural crime thriller to date.

Harriet Klausner