Grant County, Georgia
Encyclopedia
Grant County, Georgia, is a fictional place
used for the settings of Karin Slaughter
's novels. The main characters in these novels are Sara Linton, Jeffrey Tolliver, and Lena Adams. The Grant County books are Blindsighted
, Kisscut
, A Faint Cold Fear
, Indelible
, Faithless
, and Beyond Reach
. (Additional titles may have been used outside of the US market). There are over 17 million Karin Slaughter novels sold worldwide, and she is translated into 30 languages.
for the town of Heartsdale, in rural Grant County, Georgia. She was born in Heartsdale at the Grant Medical Center and grew up in the town. An excellent student, in middle school
she developed an interest in science and was able to get college-level tutoring from some of the professors at the local technological university. Sara went to Robert E. Lee High School where, due to her intelligence and hard work, she finished a year early. She spent her teenage summers working for her father's plumbing
business, Linton & Daughters, and as a result is still an accomplished plumber who can make things happen with a torch and flux. She could have gone into the family business but a fear of spider-ridden crawl spaces and the desire for challenge took her off to school amid the bright lights and big city excitement of Atlanta.
Sara attended Emory University
on scholarship
and obtained her medical degree
, and also ran track. After college, she served her medical intern
ship at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, one of the largest hospitals in the world, and then became a pediatric resident there. During one of her shifts at the hospital she was savagely attacked in the restroom and rape
d and left for dead. Her assailant was caught and imprisoned, and after the trial Sara returned to Heartsdale. He mailed her and his other victims mocking postcard
s annually for the next dozen years. The rape resulted in an ectopic pregnancy
which led to a partial hysterectomy
, and Sara can never have children.
Back in her home town, Sara began working at the Heartsdale Children's Clinic for Dr. Barney, the owner. A year later she took on the coroner's position to earn extra money so she could buy him out when he retired. She decided to keep the coroner job even after she'd paid Dr. Barney off because it helped combat the drudgery of day-in and day-out earaches and sore throat
s at the clinic.
Sara was the doctor for the high school football
team, on the sideline during a game, the first time she met Jeffrey Tolliver, the new chief of police
. Though he had a reputation for being an overactive horndog, he took her breath away and turned her knees to jelly. But she played it cool and he was immediately interested. They dated and fell in love and were eventually married in a small ceremony in the living room
of her parents' home. They'd been married for six years when she came home and found him in bed with the town's sign painter, and Sara filed for divorce
the next day. She had never told him about the rape.
Sara and Jeffrey were divorced for two years, but he never stopped loving her nor she him, though she gave it her best shot. Then they were brought together by the murder of Sibyl Adams (in Blindsighted), the twin
sister of Jeffrey's best detective
, Lena Adams. During the course of the investigation, when she was at an emotional low, Sara went to Jeffrey for comfort and revealed the details of her rape to him. They began to reconnect, then dated, and over three years and five books she watched him grow and change from the man he had been, and (around Indelible) she realized she wanted him back in her life. They were married for a second time (between Faithless and Beyond Reach, which is called Skin Privilege in the UK) and shortly after applied to adopt
a child. Six months after their wedding they received word that they would become the proud parents of a 9-month-old boy.
Sara is "a tall drink of water," 5'11" to be exact. She has dark auburn hair and emerald green eyes, and is slim yet curvaceous. She has perfect skin, a smile that can make you think you're the only one in the world, and a biting wit. She's extremely intelligent, fiercely independent, aloof, and seldom opens up to people. She is controlled and rarely cries. She likes BMW
s, loves her family, loves children, and has two greyhound
s that she got from Greyhound Rescue. She's a terrible dancer, a heavy sleeper, a horrible housekeeper, and she can't cook. She often dresses sloppily yet comfortably. She has a gentle heart and feet that are so big when she goes out in public mothers pull their children in off the street so they won't get smushed.
over their garage
.
Her mother, Cathy Linton, is religious, opinionated and often disapproving, sometimes overbearingly intrusive and hypercritical. She's also devoted, omniscient, eternally worried about Sara, pragmatic, and never a source of bad maternal advice. Cathy is blonde and blue-eyed and beautiful, sexy and petite. She keeps her figure slim by doing yoga. She's witty and down to earth, as gracious or cutting as the prevailing situation demands.
Eddie Linton, Sara's father, owns Linton & Daughters Plumbing, which he operates with her sister. He wanted Sara to join the family business
, but to his disappointment she became a doctor instead. Eddie hated Jeffrey, but eventually came to accept him, albeit grudgingly, while Jeffrey grudgingly admits that Eddie is the kind of father he wishes he had. Eddie tells bad jokes, swears mercilessly while he's working on a job, and is a shrewd real estate
investor, owning several properties around the lake, an apartment complex in Madison, and rental units in Florida.
Tessa is Sara's baby sister, a fact that she ruthlessly exploits in their relationship. Tessa taks after Cathy physically, thin and blonde. In school Sara was envious of Tessa, seeing her as the popular and pretty one, the cheerleader, while she was the tall one, maybe on a good day the redheaded one. Tessa's selfish and immature, which she happily admits, and likes her an amorous peccadillo from time to time.
Farther out in the family orbit are cousin Hareton and aunt Isabella. Bella is a hard partyer with a penchant for younger men who travels with her own stock of liquor and visits infrequently, as she hates Grant County. She resides in Atlanta and Sara lived with her for a short period when she was at Emory but Bella's lifestyle didn't mesh well with the rigors of medical school
. Cousin Hare lives in Grant County, where he's also a doctor and has always been fiercely competitive with Sara. He's flamboyant and dramatic, and very funny. Much to Sara's chagrin, he rarely takes anything seriously.
Jeffrey Tolliver is the chief of police of Grant County, and Sara Linton's husband. This is their second marriage. He was born and grew up in the small town of Sylacauga, Alabama
, famous for its white marble, producing Jim Nabors
, and the first documented case of a person being struck by a meteorite
. He was the son of Jimmy and May Tolliver, the former an abusive drunk and the latter an abused drunk. As a child Jeffrey often stepped in between to try to shield his mother, and this in part later led him to become a cop—the need to protect the weak and vulnerable. Jimmy was also a small-time criminal, a perpetual loser, and eventually went to prison for good, where he died. May is still in Sylacauga, watching life go by through the bottom of a glass..
As a child, Jeffrey was ashamed of his circumstances—his poverty
, his clothes, his home, his father, the townsfolk assuming he was trash and trouble—and looked forward to the day he would be able to leave Sylacauga. Most of his history is learned in Kisscut and Indelible, such as: his two best friends growing up were Robert Blankenship, nicknamed Spot because of facial blemishes in his early teens, and Jerry Long, nicknamed Possum because of his behavior after a fireworks mishap. Jeffrey was eventually nicknamed Slick when his prowess with the opposite sex became apparent. As kids, they got into more than their share of trouble. Because of this, and being his father's son, Jeffrey was well-known to the local police force, and they gave him quite a bit of attention at the behest of the sheriff, Clayton "Hoss" Hollister, who made Jeffrey his special project to keep him from turning out like his old man. It worked, and ultimately Hoss became his mentor and Jeffrey entered law enforcement
.
Jeffrey was a very talented football player in high school
and helped lead his team to the state championship
as a receiver. From there he went on to play for the University of Auburn and got to go to the Sugar Bowl
, but he spent a lot of time on the bench, never really achieving excellence at the college level though he did love history and that was his major, only he dropped out two quarters before getting his degree. Before he was to graduate his father was sent to prison for life, and at Hoss's urging, Jeffrey entered the police academy
. After leaving the academy he spent the first 10 years of his career on the force in Birmingham, Alabama
. From there he took the job as police chief of Grant County, replacing the subpar Ben Walker. Two weeks into the job he hired Lena Adams, whom he handpicked straight out of the academy in Macon, to be the first woman on the force who wasn't a secretary. By the time Beyond Reach/Skin Privilege takes place, Jeffrey's been the chief in Grant for 16 years. He's been shot twice in the line of duty, one time not seriously (well, if there is such a thing), the other almost killing him. The only time he's fired his weapon at someone else was when he had to shoot a 13-year-old girl to keep her from killing another teenager, something for which he's wracked by guilt to this day.
Though their first meeting was often alluded to, we never found out how Jeffrey met Sara until Slaughter put a “Bonus Chapter” on her website as a gift to readers after Beyond Reach/Skin Privilege. While doing a meet-and-greet at one of the local high school's football games after he was first hired, Jeffrey introduced himself to Sara and was so mesmerized he cancelled a date he had that night with a voluptuous stewardess in Atlanta. He found Sara's intelligence, laugh, penetrating green eyes, sloppy dress, and modesty to be incredibly sexy, and though he realized she'd require much more effort on his part than he usually had to put forth, he was hooked. They started dating and though Jeffrey was initially in it for the sexual conquest, he fell for her hard, and she fell in love with him, and they were married.
After Jeffrey and Sara were divorced but before they remarried, he found out he had a teenage son that he wasn't aware of. Back in high school Jeffrey and Darnell had dated off and on, but when he left for Auburn they agreed to see other people. Still, he was taken aback when she married one of his best friends a month after he left. And when Nell gave birth eight months farther on, he was slightly miffed when he realized she had been fooling around on him, but he also knew things just wouldn't have worked out between them. It didn't dawn on him that it was his child and his friend had stepped in for him. For her part, Nell never told Jeffrey because she know he would have come back to marry her, and she also realized it would've been a joyless marriage. Ironically, his son, named Jared, is a huge Alabama
fan.
Jeffrey is 6'2" tall, with a lean runner's build, blue eyes, and dark, dangerous good looks. Before he met Sara, he was quite the lothario, perhaps slightly less horny than a rutting satyr
. He liked the women and they liked him; he lost his virginity
when he was 12. He has superb penmanship and is a great dancer and excellent marksman. He hates lima beans and is obsessively orderly. He's stubborn, honest, thoughtful, sticks up for the underdog
, and feels responsible for the safety of everyone in Grant County. According to Sara, he's "a good man." And we all know they're hard to find.
Lena is about 5'4" and 120 pounds. She has olive skin and dark brown hair, probably inherited from her Mexican grandfather. Lena and her twin sister, Sibyl, were born in the poor town of Reese in Elawah County, Georgia. We find out more about this when we go to Reese in Beyond Reach/Skin Privilege. Their father, Calvin Adams, was a police officer
who was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop three months after marrying their mother Angela. A few weeks after the funeral Angela realized she was pregnant; her closest relative, brother Hank Norton, wasn't much help since he was a drug addict and alcoholic
. Hank always told everyone that when Angela died from an infection
after giving birth, and he took in her daughters, he cleaned right up and found God. But in reality he only quit the drugs, and kept on drinking for eight years. One day when he was on a binge and the girls were playing ball in the front yard, Lena watched in horror as the bumper of Hank's backing car struck Sibyl in the temple when she chased an errant throw across the driveway. She was blinded
for life, and that's when Hank gave up drinking. Though Sibyl forgave him, Lena never did.
As the years went by, Lena acted as Sibyl's eyes, something she credited with making her a good detective later, and worked hard to help Sibyl become independent. As the girls grew up, Hank doted on Sibyl but rode Lena hard, and she rebelled accordingly. She cast about for approval and attention from anyone but Hank, and made some poor decisions, among them hanging out with a bad crowd and sleeping with a man in his 20s when she was only 15.
Right out of high school Lena joined the police academy in Macon
, where her tenacity and toughness caught the eye of Jeffrey Tolliver, who hired her for the Grant County police force. This was fortuitous as Sibyl already worked as a professor at Grant Institute of Technology, in the same town. Lena made detective in only eight years, when she became the youngest person (at 33) and only woman on the senior squad. She was teamed up with Frank Wallace, a male chauvinist
two years from retirement
who didn't think women had any business being on the force, much less being partnered with him. Predictably, they butted heads at every turn, but also developed a grudging respect for each other.
Sibyl, who was gay, lived with her lover Nan Thomas, something Lena was never comfortable with and even somewhat ashamed of. She never spoke with Sybil about it. Then at the beginning of the Grant County series, Sybil was raped and murder
ed in the local diner
. Lena was devastated, obliterated by loss and guilt. Her life felt like it no longer had meaning. Hank came up from Reese to help out as best he could, and though they remained combative and wary, they also came to realize how much they needed each other. Lena's only respite was in working the case, but she was dangerously close to the edge; then something else happened (major plot development—we ain't giving it away here) which was emotionally crushing, and Jeffrey made her take some time off. Could things get any worse? Absolutely. She was kidnapped
and torture
d by her sister's killer.
After that, Lena tried to stay afloat in a nightmarish cocktail of emotional and physical agony: guilt
, shame
, self-loathing, fear
, anxiety
, revulsion
, dyspepsia
, alcoholism, loss of confidence, suicidal
tendencies, you name it. Her only balm was work, but after refusing Jeffrey's orders to seek counseling (did we mention she has trouble taking orders?) she quit the force and joined campus security for a short while, which we mostly see in A Faint Cold Fear. But Jeffrey was one of three people who never gave up on her (the other were her Uncle Hank and Nan Thomas) because he knew what it was like to have no one in your corner, and she eventually got her old job back.
Unfortunately she had become involved with an extremely dangerous, abusive, ex-con neo-nazi
named Ethan Green who’s on her like a bad rash in the next four books. This happened on a vector of self-destruction that was laid at her feet by previous events; she could no more stop it than fly to the moon. She initiated the relationship and even to some extent escalated its most sordid elements; by the time she fully recognized the danger she was in, it was too late. She was mired and he would not let her go. She framed him on a parole violation charge and he went back to prison, but he is almost as dangerous within as without. Pray for poor Lena, she needs it.
, an eye to cancer
, and a kidney
to a disgruntled client who chose to pay his bill with bullets. Buddy's obviously a survivor, and he's tough as nails. Though often reviled by the local cops, if any of them got into trouble he's the one they would call. He's honest and fair and has helped Jeffrey on several occasions. There's a humorous aside in Kisscut involving Buddy that is a nod to one of the great Flannery O'Connor
's short stories, and in Faithless we get a glimpse into his complicated family life.
Nan Thomas -- Lover and roommate of Lena's murdered sister, Sibyl, Nan is the school librarian
at Grant Tech. At first, Lena hated and resented Nan, partly because she was ashamed of her sister's homosexuality
, partly because she was jealous of having to share her sister's affection. Ironically, after the murder Nan and Lena became friends, then roommates, and Nan is now one of the few people within Lena's comfort zone
(such as it is), in part because of shared memories of Sibyl. Nan is dorky and gentle and homey; there was a time Lena might have described her as mousy, but that was before she questioned Nan's love for Sibyl and received a verbal thrashing of epic proportion.
Frank Wallace -- One of the older detectives on the force, Frank has been in Grant County his entire career. The chief's job was his for the taking, but Frank saw that times were changing and didn't covet a leadership position in the fight against criminal modernism, the encroachment of newer, deadlier drugs and gang activity and their accompanying horrors. Frank won't retire, though he could, and his lot has not been easy, being partnered with Lena for most of her career. Since Lena is Lena and Frank is an old-school sexist, there have been fireworks aplenty.
Brad Stephens -- When first we meet Brad, he's really just a kid, a junior patrolman on the Grant County police force. He's not taken very seriously and often given scut work. Other cops steal his patrolman's hat and place it in prominent places around town, like on the heads of statues. But though Brad begins building his career on conspicuous earnestness and honesty, he soon proves his mettle with bravery, toughness, and unselfish heroics.
Nick Shelton -- Georgia Bureau of Investigation's (GBI) good old boy field agent
for Grant County, he is constantly working with Jeffrey and Sara on cases. Imminently capable, Nick has made a point of asking Sara out several times during her separation from Jeffrey—partly because he's interested, but probably also partly just to get Jeffrey's back up. Since he's only five-foot-six and wears more gold jewelry than Mister T, he's not quite Sara's type. Sometime before Indelible, Nick becomes involved with Sara's nurse, Molly Stoddard.
Carlos Quiñonez -- Sara's uncomplaining and efficient assistant at the morgue
. Carlos handles all of the "less glamorous" things that must be done in an autopsy
—arranging the tools, taking notes, rinsing and weighing organs, x-rays, cataloguing samples, and most important, cleanup. Carlos is short and round and keeps his mouth shut about confidential matters. Sara hired him right out of high school and even though she's known him for a long time, she knows very little about him.
Nelly Morgan -- Nelly is the office manager of the Heartsdale Children's Clinic. She's held that position since Sara was a child.
Molly Stoddard -- Sara's nurse at the children's clinic, she's been there a long time, too. She's a handsome, compact woman, the mother of two children who's always impeccably dressed in her starched white nurse's uniform. She is brave and unselfish, volunteering to enter the hostage situation with Lena in Indelible, disguised as a paramedic
offering medical assistance. Also during Indelible we learn that she is romantically involved with GBI agent Nick Shelton.
Elliot Felteau -- The other doctor at the clinic. Sara hired him right out of his residency at Augusta Hospital; he's eager and wants to eventually buy into a partnership. But he's not helping his chances by always stealing other people's sodas, frozen dinners, and ice cream bars out of the office refrigerator
.
Jimmy Powell -- One of Sara's patients, he is diagnosed with myeloblastic leukemia when he is only 12 years old. Over the course of the series, Sara is tortured by his agonizing demise, and when he finally dies, his now divorced parents instigate the type of specious lawsuit
so common to today's litigious society. The parents of many of Sara's other patients, smelling blood in the water, join in, forcing the closure of her clinic and relegating Heartsdale to the pediatric wilderness, territory shared by much of the rest of rural America.
Marla Simms -- Dispatcher/receptionist/secretary at the Grant County Police Station. Marla has taught children's Sunday school
classes at the Primitive Baptist Church since around the time people started remembering the Alamo
.
Matt Hogan—Another of the older detectives on the senior squad, Matt was Frank Wallace's partner back in the day and they're in the lodge together. More recently, he's often paired with Frank when Lena is being disciplined or kept on a short leash. Unfortunately, Frank is a racist
.
Steve Mann -- Owns the hardware store
, which he took over from his father. Steve was the star quarterback on the high school football team and Sara's first real boyfriend; she gave up her virginity to him. He's married with children now but still harbors a crush for Sara since she was his first love.
Pete Wayne -- Owner of the Grant Filling Station diner since Sara was a small child, he also took it over from his dad. Pete lives in Madison and is a very considerate guy, but we find out in Blindsighted that he's an ungrateful bigot when it comes to black people. The diner closed a little less than a year after Sibyl Adams was murdered there.
Jeb McGuire -- Heartsdale's laid-back pharmacist
and a good-looking guy. He and Sara dated off and on when he first moved to town before Sara met Jeffrey, and then they had a couple of dates after Sara and Jeffrey were divorced. He owns a boat but can't swim.
Betty Reynolds -- Owns the Shop-o-rama Five and Dime store.
Jill-June -- Manages the Shop-o-rama, likes to gossip
and is locally notorious for an unfortunate choice of hair coloring. Lena refers to her as "the yellow-haired freak."
Marty Ringo -- Checkout clerk at the pharmacy, also likes to gossip. Has a hairy mole on her forehead that could have been cast in Day of the Triffids.
Old Man Burgess -- Elderly and hirsute of nostril and ear canal, Bill Burgess owns the dry cleaners. In Indelible he helps stop the shooters from escaping with his handy shotgun
, but almost kills everyone on the street with ricocheting buckshot from trying to fire through bulletproof glass.
Dave Fine -- Pastor of Crescent Baptist Church, where Brad Stephens, Matt Hogan, Hank Norton, and (occasionally) Lena attend services.
Kevin Black -- Dean of Grant Institute of Technology.
lawsuit filed by the parents of Jimmy Powell, now dead from leukemia
, and a deep-pockets-picking lawyer, over a ridiculous technicality. Everything she's built up for the last 16 years is crumbling away as greedy townspeople line up to get in on the action, not realizing their betrayal of her is only going to result in higher healthcare costs for everyone or that the nearest pediatrician is 100 miles away. Sara's parents are gone on a cross-country RV trip and her sister is counseling the homeless in Atlanta, only old/new husband Jeffrey is there for support. When he's called away to the town of Reese, it's almost a relief to get to go with him...except that they're going because Lena lies in a hospital
with smoke inhalation
, under arrest
and suspected of being involved in murder. She was found beaten badly, watching a torched SUV burn with a body inside it, on the 50-yard line of the high school
football field, foot propped on an empty gas can. And she won't say a word to anyone. Reese is Lena's home town, and she came back to check on her Uncle Hank, the ex-addict who raised her and her twin sister. She found him mixed up with some very unsavory characters and hooked on drugs again after being clean for three decades. And major events from her past are now in question, events that shaped who she is. One of the few things of which she is certain is that Jeffrey and Sara are in terrible danger, and she must stop at nothing to get them out of town.
Fictional location
Fictional locations are places that exist only in fiction and not in reality. Writers may create and describe such places to serve as backdrop for their fictional works. Fictional locations are also created for use as settings in Role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons...
used for the settings of Karin Slaughter
Karin Slaughter
-Personal Life:Karin Slaughter is an American crime writer, whose first novel Blindsighted became an international success, was published in almost 30 languages, and made the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger Award shortlist for "Best Thriller Debut" of 2001.Fractured, the second novel in the...
's novels. The main characters in these novels are Sara Linton, Jeffrey Tolliver, and Lena Adams. The Grant County books are Blindsighted
Blindsighted
Blindsighted , is an award winning New York Times and Times bestseller psychological thriller novel, by author Karin Slaughter. It is the first of the Grant County, Georgia Series of books. It became an instant international success and was published in 23 different countries.It introduces the...
, Kisscut
Kisscut
Kisscut is the second book in the Grant County series by author Karin Slaughter. It was originally released in hardback in 2002. The previous book in the series is Blindsighted...
, A Faint Cold Fear
A Faint Cold Fear
A Faint Cold Fear is the third novel in the Grant County series by author Karin Slaughter. It was originally published in hardback in 2003. Previous books in the series are Blindsighted, and Kisscut...
, Indelible
Indelible
Indelible is the fourth book in the Grant County series by author Karin Slaughter. It was originally released in hardback in 2004. Previous books in the series are Blindsighted, Kisscut, and A Faint Cold Fear...
, Faithless
Faithless (novel)
Faithless is the fifth novel in the Grant County, Georgia series by author Karin Slaughter. It was originally published in hardback in 2005. It was a #1 The Times bestseller. Previous books in the series are Blindsighted, Kisscut, A Faint Cold Fear, and Indelible...
, and Beyond Reach
Beyond Reach
Beyond Reach is the sixth novel in the Grant County series by Karin Slaughter, originally published in 2007 . The previous books in the series are Blindsighted, Kisscut, A Faint Cold Fear, Indelible, and Faithless...
. (Additional titles may have been used outside of the US market). There are over 17 million Karin Slaughter novels sold worldwide, and she is translated into 30 languages.
Sara Linton
Sara Linton is the pediatrician and coronerCoroner
A coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...
for the town of Heartsdale, in rural Grant County, Georgia. She was born in Heartsdale at the Grant Medical Center and grew up in the town. An excellent student, in middle school
Middle school
Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
she developed an interest in science and was able to get college-level tutoring from some of the professors at the local technological university. Sara went to Robert E. Lee High School where, due to her intelligence and hard work, she finished a year early. She spent her teenage summers working for her father's plumbing
Plumbing
Plumbing is the system of pipes and drains installed in a building for the distribution of potable drinking water and the removal of waterborne wastes, and the skilled trade of working with pipes, tubing and plumbing fixtures in such systems. A plumber is someone who installs or repairs piping...
business, Linton & Daughters, and as a result is still an accomplished plumber who can make things happen with a torch and flux. She could have gone into the family business but a fear of spider-ridden crawl spaces and the desire for challenge took her off to school amid the bright lights and big city excitement of Atlanta.
Sara attended Emory University
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
on scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
and obtained her medical degree
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
, and also ran track. After college, she served her medical intern
Medical intern
A medical intern is a term used in the United States for a physician in training who has completed medical school. An intern has a medical degree, but does not have a full license to practice medicine unsupervised...
ship at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, one of the largest hospitals in the world, and then became a pediatric resident there. During one of her shifts at the hospital she was savagely attacked in the restroom and rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d and left for dead. Her assailant was caught and imprisoned, and after the trial Sara returned to Heartsdale. He mailed her and his other victims mocking postcard
Postcard
A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope....
s annually for the next dozen years. The rape resulted in an ectopic pregnancy
Ectopic pregnancy
An ectopic pregnancy, or eccysis , is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo implants outside the uterine cavity. With rare exceptions, ectopic pregnancies are not viable. Furthermore, they are dangerous for the parent, since internal haemorrhage is a life threatening complication...
which led to a partial hysterectomy
Hysterectomy
A hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus, usually performed by a gynecologist. Hysterectomy may be total or partial...
, and Sara can never have children.
Back in her home town, Sara began working at the Heartsdale Children's Clinic for Dr. Barney, the owner. A year later she took on the coroner's position to earn extra money so she could buy him out when he retired. She decided to keep the coroner job even after she'd paid Dr. Barney off because it helped combat the drudgery of day-in and day-out earaches and sore throat
Sore throat
A sore throat or throat pain is a common physical symptom usually caused by acute pharyngitis, or throat inflammation, though it also occurs in a number of other situations, such as post trauma and in diphtheria. It can cause mild to extreme pain....
s at the clinic.
Sara was the doctor for the high school football
High school football
High school football, in North America, refers to the game of football as it is played in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both of these nations....
team, on the sideline during a game, the first time she met Jeffrey Tolliver, the new chief of police
Chief of police
A Chief of Police is the title typically given to the top official in the chain of command of a police department, particularly in North America. Alternate titles for this position include Commissioner, Superintendent, and Chief constable...
. Though he had a reputation for being an overactive horndog, he took her breath away and turned her knees to jelly. But she played it cool and he was immediately interested. They dated and fell in love and were eventually married in a small ceremony in the living room
Living room
A living room, also known as sitting room, lounge room or lounge , is a room for entertaining adult guests, reading, or other activities...
of her parents' home. They'd been married for six years when she came home and found him in bed with the town's sign painter, and Sara filed for divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
the next day. She had never told him about the rape.
Sara and Jeffrey were divorced for two years, but he never stopped loving her nor she him, though she gave it her best shot. Then they were brought together by the murder of Sibyl Adams (in Blindsighted), the twin
Twin
A twin is one of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy. Twins can either be monozygotic , meaning that they develop from one zygote that splits and forms two embryos, or dizygotic because they develop from two separate eggs that are fertilized by two separate sperm.In contrast, a fetus...
sister of Jeffrey's best detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
, Lena Adams. During the course of the investigation, when she was at an emotional low, Sara went to Jeffrey for comfort and revealed the details of her rape to him. They began to reconnect, then dated, and over three years and five books she watched him grow and change from the man he had been, and (around Indelible) she realized she wanted him back in her life. They were married for a second time (between Faithless and Beyond Reach, which is called Skin Privilege in the UK) and shortly after applied to adopt
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
a child. Six months after their wedding they received word that they would become the proud parents of a 9-month-old boy.
Sara is "a tall drink of water," 5'11" to be exact. She has dark auburn hair and emerald green eyes, and is slim yet curvaceous. She has perfect skin, a smile that can make you think you're the only one in the world, and a biting wit. She's extremely intelligent, fiercely independent, aloof, and seldom opens up to people. She is controlled and rarely cries. She likes BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
s, loves her family, loves children, and has two greyhound
Greyhound
The Greyhound is a breed of sighthound that has been primarily bred for coursing game and racing, and the breed has also recently seen a resurgence in its popularity as a pedigree show dog and family pet. It is a gentle and intelligent breed...
s that she got from Greyhound Rescue. She's a terrible dancer, a heavy sleeper, a horrible housekeeper, and she can't cook. She often dresses sloppily yet comfortably. She has a gentle heart and feet that are so big when she goes out in public mothers pull their children in off the street so they won't get smushed.
Sara’s Family
Sara's family is an important, loving anchor in her life, an ever-present shelter from whatever storm she's currently weathering. Her parents live on the shores of Lake Grant across the water from Sara, who also lives on the lake. Her sister Tessa lives with them, in the apartmentApartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
over their garage
Garage (house)
A residential garage is part of a home, or an associated building, designed or used for storing a vehicle or vehicles. In some places the term is used synonymously with "carport", though that term normally describes a structure that is not completely enclosed.- British residential garages:Those...
.
Her mother, Cathy Linton, is religious, opinionated and often disapproving, sometimes overbearingly intrusive and hypercritical. She's also devoted, omniscient, eternally worried about Sara, pragmatic, and never a source of bad maternal advice. Cathy is blonde and blue-eyed and beautiful, sexy and petite. She keeps her figure slim by doing yoga. She's witty and down to earth, as gracious or cutting as the prevailing situation demands.
Eddie Linton, Sara's father, owns Linton & Daughters Plumbing, which he operates with her sister. He wanted Sara to join the family business
Family business
A family business is a business in which one or more members of one or more families have a significant ownership interest and significant commitments toward the business’ overall well-being....
, but to his disappointment she became a doctor instead. Eddie hated Jeffrey, but eventually came to accept him, albeit grudgingly, while Jeffrey grudgingly admits that Eddie is the kind of father he wishes he had. Eddie tells bad jokes, swears mercilessly while he's working on a job, and is a shrewd real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
investor, owning several properties around the lake, an apartment complex in Madison, and rental units in Florida.
Tessa is Sara's baby sister, a fact that she ruthlessly exploits in their relationship. Tessa taks after Cathy physically, thin and blonde. In school Sara was envious of Tessa, seeing her as the popular and pretty one, the cheerleader, while she was the tall one, maybe on a good day the redheaded one. Tessa's selfish and immature, which she happily admits, and likes her an amorous peccadillo from time to time.
Farther out in the family orbit are cousin Hareton and aunt Isabella. Bella is a hard partyer with a penchant for younger men who travels with her own stock of liquor and visits infrequently, as she hates Grant County. She resides in Atlanta and Sara lived with her for a short period when she was at Emory but Bella's lifestyle didn't mesh well with the rigors of medical school
Medical school
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution—or part of such an institution—that teaches medicine. Degree programs offered at medical schools often include Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Bachelor/Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Philosophy, master's degree, or other post-secondary...
. Cousin Hare lives in Grant County, where he's also a doctor and has always been fiercely competitive with Sara. He's flamboyant and dramatic, and very funny. Much to Sara's chagrin, he rarely takes anything seriously.
Jeffrey Tolliver
Jeffrey Tolliver BiographyJeffrey Tolliver is the chief of police of Grant County, and Sara Linton's husband. This is their second marriage. He was born and grew up in the small town of Sylacauga, Alabama
Sylacauga, Alabama
Sylacauga is a city in Talladega County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 12,616.Nicknames for Sylacauga include: "The Marble City," "Buzzard's Roost" and "Sly Town"....
, famous for its white marble, producing Jim Nabors
Jim Nabors
James Thurston "Jim" Nabors is an American actor and singer. Born and raised in Sylacauga, Alabama, Nabors moved to Southern California because of his asthma. While working at a Santa Monica nightclub, The Horn, he was discovered by Andy Griffith and later joined The Andy Griffith Show, playing...
, and the first documented case of a person being struck by a meteorite
Meteorite
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...
. He was the son of Jimmy and May Tolliver, the former an abusive drunk and the latter an abused drunk. As a child Jeffrey often stepped in between to try to shield his mother, and this in part later led him to become a cop—the need to protect the weak and vulnerable. Jimmy was also a small-time criminal, a perpetual loser, and eventually went to prison for good, where he died. May is still in Sylacauga, watching life go by through the bottom of a glass..
As a child, Jeffrey was ashamed of his circumstances—his poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
, his clothes, his home, his father, the townsfolk assuming he was trash and trouble—and looked forward to the day he would be able to leave Sylacauga. Most of his history is learned in Kisscut and Indelible, such as: his two best friends growing up were Robert Blankenship, nicknamed Spot because of facial blemishes in his early teens, and Jerry Long, nicknamed Possum because of his behavior after a fireworks mishap. Jeffrey was eventually nicknamed Slick when his prowess with the opposite sex became apparent. As kids, they got into more than their share of trouble. Because of this, and being his father's son, Jeffrey was well-known to the local police force, and they gave him quite a bit of attention at the behest of the sheriff, Clayton "Hoss" Hollister, who made Jeffrey his special project to keep him from turning out like his old man. It worked, and ultimately Hoss became his mentor and Jeffrey entered law enforcement
Law enforcement agency
In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...
.
Jeffrey was a very talented football player in high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
and helped lead his team to the state championship
State Championship
New Zealand has had a domestic first-class cricket championship since the 1906–07 season. It is currently known as the Plunket Shield, reintroducing the name used in the early stages for the 2009–10 season.-Plunket Shield:...
as a receiver. From there he went on to play for the University of Auburn and got to go to the Sugar Bowl
Sugar Bowl
The Sugar Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Sugar Bowl has been played annually since January 1, 1935, and celebrated its 75th anniversary on January 2, 2009...
, but he spent a lot of time on the bench, never really achieving excellence at the college level though he did love history and that was his major, only he dropped out two quarters before getting his degree. Before he was to graduate his father was sent to prison for life, and at Hoss's urging, Jeffrey entered the police academy
Police academy
A police academy is a training school for new police recruits, also known as a law enforcement academy.-Australia:Larger police departments usually run their own academies. States often run a centralised academy for training of personnel of law enforcement agencies within the state.Police...
. After leaving the academy he spent the first 10 years of his career on the force in Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
. From there he took the job as police chief of Grant County, replacing the subpar Ben Walker. Two weeks into the job he hired Lena Adams, whom he handpicked straight out of the academy in Macon, to be the first woman on the force who wasn't a secretary. By the time Beyond Reach/Skin Privilege takes place, Jeffrey's been the chief in Grant for 16 years. He's been shot twice in the line of duty, one time not seriously (well, if there is such a thing), the other almost killing him. The only time he's fired his weapon at someone else was when he had to shoot a 13-year-old girl to keep her from killing another teenager, something for which he's wracked by guilt to this day.
Though their first meeting was often alluded to, we never found out how Jeffrey met Sara until Slaughter put a “Bonus Chapter” on her website as a gift to readers after Beyond Reach/Skin Privilege. While doing a meet-and-greet at one of the local high school's football games after he was first hired, Jeffrey introduced himself to Sara and was so mesmerized he cancelled a date he had that night with a voluptuous stewardess in Atlanta. He found Sara's intelligence, laugh, penetrating green eyes, sloppy dress, and modesty to be incredibly sexy, and though he realized she'd require much more effort on his part than he usually had to put forth, he was hooked. They started dating and though Jeffrey was initially in it for the sexual conquest, he fell for her hard, and she fell in love with him, and they were married.
After Jeffrey and Sara were divorced but before they remarried, he found out he had a teenage son that he wasn't aware of. Back in high school Jeffrey and Darnell had dated off and on, but when he left for Auburn they agreed to see other people. Still, he was taken aback when she married one of his best friends a month after he left. And when Nell gave birth eight months farther on, he was slightly miffed when he realized she had been fooling around on him, but he also knew things just wouldn't have worked out between them. It didn't dawn on him that it was his child and his friend had stepped in for him. For her part, Nell never told Jeffrey because she know he would have come back to marry her, and she also realized it would've been a joyless marriage. Ironically, his son, named Jared, is a huge Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
fan.
Jeffrey is 6'2" tall, with a lean runner's build, blue eyes, and dark, dangerous good looks. Before he met Sara, he was quite the lothario, perhaps slightly less horny than a rutting satyr
Satyr
In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing....
. He liked the women and they liked him; he lost his virginity
Virginity
Virginity refers to the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth...
when he was 12. He has superb penmanship and is a great dancer and excellent marksman. He hates lima beans and is obsessively orderly. He's stubborn, honest, thoughtful, sticks up for the underdog
Underdog (competition)
An underdog is a person or group in a competition, frequently in electoral politics, sports and creative works, who is popularly expected to lose. The party, team or individual expected to win is called the favorite or top dog. In the rare case where an underdog wins, the outcome is an upset. These...
, and feels responsible for the safety of everyone in Grant County. According to Sara, he's "a good man." And we all know they're hard to find.
Lena Adams
Alas, Lena is perhaps the most complicated character in the bunch. Lena Adams is one of Jeffrey's detectives on the Grant County police force. She was angry, aggressive, and conflicted; cocky and confrontational. She was rebellious and had trouble following orders. She had a chip on her shoulder that was visible from outer space. Then she took a turn for the worse. But more on that laterLena is about 5'4" and 120 pounds. She has olive skin and dark brown hair, probably inherited from her Mexican grandfather. Lena and her twin sister, Sibyl, were born in the poor town of Reese in Elawah County, Georgia. We find out more about this when we go to Reese in Beyond Reach/Skin Privilege. Their father, Calvin Adams, was a police officer
Police officer
A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
who was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop three months after marrying their mother Angela. A few weeks after the funeral Angela realized she was pregnant; her closest relative, brother Hank Norton, wasn't much help since he was a drug addict and alcoholic
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. Hank always told everyone that when Angela died from an infection
Infection
An infection is the colonization of a host organism by parasite species. Infecting parasites seek to use the host's resources to reproduce, often resulting in disease...
after giving birth, and he took in her daughters, he cleaned right up and found God. But in reality he only quit the drugs, and kept on drinking for eight years. One day when he was on a binge and the girls were playing ball in the front yard, Lena watched in horror as the bumper of Hank's backing car struck Sibyl in the temple when she chased an errant throw across the driveway. She was blinded
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
for life, and that's when Hank gave up drinking. Though Sibyl forgave him, Lena never did.
As the years went by, Lena acted as Sibyl's eyes, something she credited with making her a good detective later, and worked hard to help Sibyl become independent. As the girls grew up, Hank doted on Sibyl but rode Lena hard, and she rebelled accordingly. She cast about for approval and attention from anyone but Hank, and made some poor decisions, among them hanging out with a bad crowd and sleeping with a man in his 20s when she was only 15.
Right out of high school Lena joined the police academy in Macon
Macon, Georgia
Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...
, where her tenacity and toughness caught the eye of Jeffrey Tolliver, who hired her for the Grant County police force. This was fortuitous as Sibyl already worked as a professor at Grant Institute of Technology, in the same town. Lena made detective in only eight years, when she became the youngest person (at 33) and only woman on the senior squad. She was teamed up with Frank Wallace, a male chauvinist
Chauvinism
Chauvinism, in its original and primary meaning, is an exaggerated, bellicose patriotism and a belief in national superiority and glory. It is an eponym of a possibly fictional French soldier Nicolas Chauvin who was credited with many superhuman feats in the Napoleonic wars.By extension it has come...
two years from retirement
Retirement
Retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours.Many people choose to retire when they are eligible for private or public pension benefits, although some are forced to retire when physical conditions don't allow the person to...
who didn't think women had any business being on the force, much less being partnered with him. Predictably, they butted heads at every turn, but also developed a grudging respect for each other.
Sibyl, who was gay, lived with her lover Nan Thomas, something Lena was never comfortable with and even somewhat ashamed of. She never spoke with Sybil about it. Then at the beginning of the Grant County series, Sybil was raped and murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ed in the local diner
Diner
A diner, also spelled dinor in western Pennsylvania is a prefabricated restaurant building characteristic of North America, especially in the Midwest, in New York City, in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey, and in other areas of the Northeastern United States, although examples can be found throughout...
. Lena was devastated, obliterated by loss and guilt. Her life felt like it no longer had meaning. Hank came up from Reese to help out as best he could, and though they remained combative and wary, they also came to realize how much they needed each other. Lena's only respite was in working the case, but she was dangerously close to the edge; then something else happened (major plot development—we ain't giving it away here) which was emotionally crushing, and Jeffrey made her take some time off. Could things get any worse? Absolutely. She was kidnapped
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
and torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d by her sister's killer.
After that, Lena tried to stay afloat in a nightmarish cocktail of emotional and physical agony: guilt
Guilt
Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that...
, shame
Shame
Shame is, variously, an affect, emotion, cognition, state, or condition. The roots of the word shame are thought to derive from an older word meaning to cover; as such, covering oneself, literally or figuratively, is a natural expression of shame....
, self-loathing, fear
Fear
Fear is a distressing negative sensation induced by a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger...
, anxiety
Anxiety
Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,...
, revulsion
Disgust
Disgust is a type of aversion that involves withdrawing from a person or object with strong expressions of revulsion whether real or pretended. It is one of the basic emotions and is typically associated with things that are regarded as unclean, inedible, infectious, gory or otherwise offensive...
, dyspepsia
Dyspepsia
Dyspepsia , also known as upset stomach or indigestion, refers to a condition of impaired digestion. It is a medical condition characterized by chronic or recurrent pain in the upper abdomen, upper abdominal fullness and feeling full earlier than expected when eating...
, alcoholism, loss of confidence, suicidal
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
tendencies, you name it. Her only balm was work, but after refusing Jeffrey's orders to seek counseling (did we mention she has trouble taking orders?) she quit the force and joined campus security for a short while, which we mostly see in A Faint Cold Fear. But Jeffrey was one of three people who never gave up on her (the other were her Uncle Hank and Nan Thomas) because he knew what it was like to have no one in your corner, and she eventually got her old job back.
Unfortunately she had become involved with an extremely dangerous, abusive, ex-con neo-nazi
Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....
named Ethan Green who’s on her like a bad rash in the next four books. This happened on a vector of self-destruction that was laid at her feet by previous events; she could no more stop it than fly to the moon. She initiated the relationship and even to some extent escalated its most sordid elements; by the time she fully recognized the danger she was in, it was too late. She was mired and he would not let her go. She framed him on a parole violation charge and he went back to prison, but he is almost as dangerous within as without. Pray for poor Lena, she needs it.
Additional characters in the Grant County books
Buddy Conford -- Grant County's most tenacious defense attorney, Buddy does a lot of public defender work. They say some men are the sum of their parts, Buddy's more like the minus. He lost a leg to a car accidentCar accident
A traffic collision, also known as a traffic accident, motor vehicle collision, motor vehicle accident, car accident, automobile accident, Road Traffic Collision or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other stationary obstruction,...
, an eye to cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, and a kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
to a disgruntled client who chose to pay his bill with bullets. Buddy's obviously a survivor, and he's tough as nails. Though often reviled by the local cops, if any of them got into trouble he's the one they would call. He's honest and fair and has helped Jeffrey on several occasions. There's a humorous aside in Kisscut involving Buddy that is a nod to one of the great Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...
's short stories, and in Faithless we get a glimpse into his complicated family life.
Nan Thomas -- Lover and roommate of Lena's murdered sister, Sibyl, Nan is the school librarian
Librarian
A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...
at Grant Tech. At first, Lena hated and resented Nan, partly because she was ashamed of her sister's homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, partly because she was jealous of having to share her sister's affection. Ironically, after the murder Nan and Lena became friends, then roommates, and Nan is now one of the few people within Lena's comfort zone
Comfort zone
The comfort zone is a behavioural state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviours to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk . A person's personality can be described by his or her comfort zones...
(such as it is), in part because of shared memories of Sibyl. Nan is dorky and gentle and homey; there was a time Lena might have described her as mousy, but that was before she questioned Nan's love for Sibyl and received a verbal thrashing of epic proportion.
Frank Wallace -- One of the older detectives on the force, Frank has been in Grant County his entire career. The chief's job was his for the taking, but Frank saw that times were changing and didn't covet a leadership position in the fight against criminal modernism, the encroachment of newer, deadlier drugs and gang activity and their accompanying horrors. Frank won't retire, though he could, and his lot has not been easy, being partnered with Lena for most of her career. Since Lena is Lena and Frank is an old-school sexist, there have been fireworks aplenty.
Brad Stephens -- When first we meet Brad, he's really just a kid, a junior patrolman on the Grant County police force. He's not taken very seriously and often given scut work. Other cops steal his patrolman's hat and place it in prominent places around town, like on the heads of statues. But though Brad begins building his career on conspicuous earnestness and honesty, he soon proves his mettle with bravery, toughness, and unselfish heroics.
Nick Shelton -- Georgia Bureau of Investigation's (GBI) good old boy field agent
Field agent
In espionage, a field agent is an agent who works in the field as opposed to one who works at the office or headquarters. A field agent can work alone or in a group but usually has a case officer who is in charge....
for Grant County, he is constantly working with Jeffrey and Sara on cases. Imminently capable, Nick has made a point of asking Sara out several times during her separation from Jeffrey—partly because he's interested, but probably also partly just to get Jeffrey's back up. Since he's only five-foot-six and wears more gold jewelry than Mister T, he's not quite Sara's type. Sometime before Indelible, Nick becomes involved with Sara's nurse, Molly Stoddard.
Carlos Quiñonez -- Sara's uncomplaining and efficient assistant at the morgue
Morgue
A morgue or mortuary is used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification, or removal for autopsy or disposal by burial, cremation or otherwise...
. Carlos handles all of the "less glamorous" things that must be done in an autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
—arranging the tools, taking notes, rinsing and weighing organs, x-rays, cataloguing samples, and most important, cleanup. Carlos is short and round and keeps his mouth shut about confidential matters. Sara hired him right out of high school and even though she's known him for a long time, she knows very little about him.
Nelly Morgan -- Nelly is the office manager of the Heartsdale Children's Clinic. She's held that position since Sara was a child.
Molly Stoddard -- Sara's nurse at the children's clinic, she's been there a long time, too. She's a handsome, compact woman, the mother of two children who's always impeccably dressed in her starched white nurse's uniform. She is brave and unselfish, volunteering to enter the hostage situation with Lena in Indelible, disguised as a paramedic
Paramedic
A paramedic is a healthcare professional that works in emergency medical situations. Paramedics provide advanced levels of care for medical emergencies and trauma. The majority of paramedics are based in the field in ambulances, emergency response vehicles, or in specialist mobile units such as...
offering medical assistance. Also during Indelible we learn that she is romantically involved with GBI agent Nick Shelton.
Elliot Felteau -- The other doctor at the clinic. Sara hired him right out of his residency at Augusta Hospital; he's eager and wants to eventually buy into a partnership. But he's not helping his chances by always stealing other people's sodas, frozen dinners, and ice cream bars out of the office refrigerator
Refrigerator
A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...
.
Jimmy Powell -- One of Sara's patients, he is diagnosed with myeloblastic leukemia when he is only 12 years old. Over the course of the series, Sara is tortured by his agonizing demise, and when he finally dies, his now divorced parents instigate the type of specious lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
so common to today's litigious society. The parents of many of Sara's other patients, smelling blood in the water, join in, forcing the closure of her clinic and relegating Heartsdale to the pediatric wilderness, territory shared by much of the rest of rural America.
Marla Simms -- Dispatcher/receptionist/secretary at the Grant County Police Station. Marla has taught children's Sunday school
Sunday school
Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
classes at the Primitive Baptist Church since around the time people started remembering the Alamo
Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo was a battle fought during the Texas Revolution.Alamo may also refer to:-Places:*Alamo Mission in San Antonio, Texas*Alamo, California*Alamo, Georgia*Alamo Township, Michigan*Alamo, Nevada*Alamo, New Mexico...
.
Matt Hogan—Another of the older detectives on the senior squad, Matt was Frank Wallace's partner back in the day and they're in the lodge together. More recently, he's often paired with Frank when Lena is being disciplined or kept on a short leash. Unfortunately, Frank is a racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
.
Steve Mann -- Owns the hardware store
Hardware store
Hardware stores, sometimes known as DIY stores, sell household hardware including: fasteners, hand tools, power tools, keys, locks, hinges, chains, plumbing supplies, electrical supplies, cleaning products, housewares, tools, utensils, paint, and lawn and garden products directly to consumers for...
, which he took over from his father. Steve was the star quarterback on the high school football team and Sara's first real boyfriend; she gave up her virginity to him. He's married with children now but still harbors a crush for Sara since she was his first love.
Pete Wayne -- Owner of the Grant Filling Station diner since Sara was a small child, he also took it over from his dad. Pete lives in Madison and is a very considerate guy, but we find out in Blindsighted that he's an ungrateful bigot when it comes to black people. The diner closed a little less than a year after Sibyl Adams was murdered there.
Jeb McGuire -- Heartsdale's laid-back pharmacist
Pharmacist
Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...
and a good-looking guy. He and Sara dated off and on when he first moved to town before Sara met Jeffrey, and then they had a couple of dates after Sara and Jeffrey were divorced. He owns a boat but can't swim.
Betty Reynolds -- Owns the Shop-o-rama Five and Dime store.
Jill-June -- Manages the Shop-o-rama, likes to gossip
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...
and is locally notorious for an unfortunate choice of hair coloring. Lena refers to her as "the yellow-haired freak."
Marty Ringo -- Checkout clerk at the pharmacy, also likes to gossip. Has a hairy mole on her forehead that could have been cast in Day of the Triffids.
Old Man Burgess -- Elderly and hirsute of nostril and ear canal, Bill Burgess owns the dry cleaners. In Indelible he helps stop the shooters from escaping with his handy shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
, but almost kills everyone on the street with ricocheting buckshot from trying to fire through bulletproof glass.
Dave Fine -- Pastor of Crescent Baptist Church, where Brad Stephens, Matt Hogan, Hank Norton, and (occasionally) Lena attend services.
Kevin Black -- Dean of Grant Institute of Technology.
Blindsighted
Blindsighted takes place over the seven days following Easter Sunday. Sara Linton serves double duty as pediatrician and coroner in the small Georgia town of Heartsdale. The latter continually brings her into contact with police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, who just happened to be her husband until they were divorced two years earlier after she caught him with another woman. Though Sara's loath to admit it she still has feelings for Jeffrey, and he's still in love with her. During a late lunch with her sister Tessa at the diner she's been eating in all her life, Sara goes to wash her hands and discovers Sibyl Adams, a blind professor at the local college, bleeding profusely in a toilet stall after being viciously attacked. Sara tries her best to save her but Sibyl dies. She was the twin sister of Lena Adams, Jeffrey's best detective, who has an antagonistic relationship with Sara and is hotheaded and prickly on her best days. The initial evidence indicates a ritualistic murderer who will continue to kill, and the autopsy uncovers shocking depravity and bizarre technique. As they race against time Sara also has to deal with a young patient named Jimmy Powell who's been diagnosed with leukemia, and ominous postcards connected to a horrendous event from her time in residency, while Lena tries to stay on the rails as she shoulders the crushing grief and guilt the death of her sister brought. There are more attacks and clue-revealing autopsies, racism rears its ugly head and claims a victim, and a chapter in Sara's past that is still being written converges in a finale that leaves Lena unalterably scarred for life in more ways than one.Kisscut
Sara and Jeffrey have tentatively resumed their romantic relationship when, on a hot August night during the summer following Blindsighted, Jeffrey is forced to shoot a 13-year-old girl to stop her from killing another teenager. What at first appears to be an unwanted pregnancy and a jilting turned deadly spurs an investigation that reveals the presence of real-life monsters preying on the children of Grant County. During its course Jeffrey battles self-doubt and remorse over killing a child, and an impromptu trip back to his hometown of Sylacauga, Alabama offers up a major clue. Lena, who just returned to duty a month earlier following her torture at the hands of the man who murdered her beloved sister and terrorized Heartsdale, fights misplaced guilt and shame, battling suicidal tendencies and struggling to regain some minute sense of normalcy in her life. Even as she contemplates quitting the police, the only thing that provides her with relief is work, and as she immerses herself more and deeper into the case she finds an uncomfortable feeling of identification with one of its most damaged victims.A Faint Cold Fear
While at the Dairy Queen with her pregnant sister Tessa, Sara is called to meet Jeffrey at the scene of an apparent suicide on campus property, a suicide they both later agree seems suspicious though they can't quite put their fingers on why. Tessa asks to go along and Sara, against her better judgment, allows it. As Sara is examining the body, Tessa walks into the woods to relieve herself. Also on hand are Lena, who's quit the force and now works for campus security, and her new boss, steroidal creep Chuck Gaines. Chuck identifies the victim as the son of two campus professors, a development sure the complicate the case exponentially for Jeffrey. When Tessa doesn't come out of the woods, a search finds her stabbed repeatedly and barely alive; she's airlifted to Grady Hospital in Atlanta. While Sara and her parents wait tensely by Tessa's bedside, Jeffrey and Lena work the case while at each other's throats over Lena's decision to quit the force. Another suicide occurs, more suspicious than the last, and as Lena spirals farther out of control with alcohol and drugs, she makes a fateful and perhaps fatal connection with student Ethan Green, who is not what he appears to be.Indelible
The story goes back and forth in time, from the beginnings of Sara and Jeffrey’s relationship to a hostage situation at the Grant County Police Station. After dating for a few months, Sara and Jeffrey head for the beaches of Florida for a few days. On their way Jeffrey makes a detour to Sylacauga, Alabama, to show her where he grew up and introduce her to his childhood friends, Robert and Possum (that's right, you heard me) and their wives. They plan to spend the night in Jeffrey's old bedroom but Sara's first meeting with his mother upsets her so, she dashes out into the street. When Jeffrey finally catches up to her, they hear a scream and gunshots coming from Robert's house. Jeffrey kicks in the door and finds a wounded Robert and his wife with a dead man in their bedroom, and their stories are conflicting and shaky. Sara and Jeffrey assist in the ensuing investigation and when it's finally resolved, Jeffrey finds that some of those closest to him during his past were not who he thought they were, and some of his deepest secrets are revealed to Sara. But that's only half the book—fast forward to the present, where the Heartsdale Police Station is taken over in a murderous bloodbath by heavily armed gunmen, right in the middle of an elementary school field trip, and while Sara is there. A terrifying and tense hostage situation develops. Lena, back on the force now, on her birthday, and suspecting she's become pregnant by abusive boyfriend Ethan Green, is one of the few Grant County cops on the outside, not knowing who's dead and who's alive. What do the gunmen want? Who are they? Is this somehow related to the events in Sylacauga all those years ago?Faithless
Sara and Jeffrey have finally started to click again when a phone call from the woman he was unfaithful with drags their affair back into sharp relief. He and Sara are arguing about this on a walk in the woods when they make a grisly discovery, the corpse of a young woman who was buried alive in a wooden coffin. They assume her death was accidental, but the autopsy reveals that she was pregnant and had been murdered—while she was underground. The search for her identity leads Jeffrey and Lena to an organic soybean farming cooperative out in the sticks owned by a large, tightly knit, old-school and old-time-religious family, helmed by the charismatic oldest son. They import their labor force from the transients and ne'er-do-wells that populate Atlanta's shelters and halfway houses, facilitated through the family church's outreach program. At one time or another the case involves strippers, one-legged, one-eyed lawyer extraordinaire Buddy Conford, an abused woman Lena both identifies with and wants to save, and a frantic search to find more buried coffins before it's too late. Upon its chilling conclusion, Sara finally agrees to remarry Jeffrey after at least four proposals, and Ethan pushes Lena so far that she decides it's time to escape.Beyond Reach
The Heartsdale Children's Clinic is closed. Sara spends all day being deposed in a malpracticeMalpractice
In law, malpractice is a type of negligence in, which the professional under a duty to act, fails to follow generally accepted professional standards, and that breach of duty is the proximate cause of injury to a plaintiff who suffers harm...
lawsuit filed by the parents of Jimmy Powell, now dead from leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
, and a deep-pockets-picking lawyer, over a ridiculous technicality. Everything she's built up for the last 16 years is crumbling away as greedy townspeople line up to get in on the action, not realizing their betrayal of her is only going to result in higher healthcare costs for everyone or that the nearest pediatrician is 100 miles away. Sara's parents are gone on a cross-country RV trip and her sister is counseling the homeless in Atlanta, only old/new husband Jeffrey is there for support. When he's called away to the town of Reese, it's almost a relief to get to go with him...except that they're going because Lena lies in a hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
with smoke inhalation
Smoke inhalation
Smoke inhalation is the primary cause of death in victims of indoor fires.Smoke inhalation injury refers to injury due to inhalation or exposure to hot gaseous products of combustion. This can cause serious respiratory complications....
, under arrest
Arrest
An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...
and suspected of being involved in murder. She was found beaten badly, watching a torched SUV burn with a body inside it, on the 50-yard line of the high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
football field, foot propped on an empty gas can. And she won't say a word to anyone. Reese is Lena's home town, and she came back to check on her Uncle Hank, the ex-addict who raised her and her twin sister. She found him mixed up with some very unsavory characters and hooked on drugs again after being clean for three decades. And major events from her past are now in question, events that shaped who she is. One of the few things of which she is certain is that Jeffrey and Sara are in terrible danger, and she must stop at nothing to get them out of town.