do not turn around
Don't turn around (title of the original edition: A Faint Cold Fear ) is a detective novel by the American writer Karin Slaughter and forms the third volume in the Grant County series. The book Do not turn around , published in the original in 2003 and in German in 2005, is the third case of the coroner Dr. Sara Linton, followed by Shadow Flower (2006), Godless (2007) and Destroyed (2009). Der Spiegel mentions a circulation of 350,000 paperbacks of this title.
content
Blurb
“One goes around. One chooses. One has to get out. Forever. It's the third death in a week. At Grant College students seem to have a macabre new hobby: dying. But police chief Jeffrey Tolliver and forensic doctor Sara Linton cannot shake off the suspicion that something is wrong with these suicides ... "
action
The action takes place on the Grant County Technical University (CIT) campus. Pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton is having an ice cream with her pregnant sister Tessa on a hot Easter day at Dairy Queen's when she is called to a crime scene by her husband, Police Chief Jeff Tolliver. Adam Rosen, a college student, allegedly committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. However, his body is horribly battered. On the basis of certain indications (on the bridge there is a graffito with the inscription “Die Nigger” and a swastika ) Sara has doubts about a suicide and no longer rules out possible third-party negligence. Adam is the son of the psychologist Dr. Jill Rosen from the Grant Institute of Technology. Chuck Gaines, the college security chief, and former police officer Lena Adams are also present at the scene. Lena, who has since found a job in the college security and is in therapy with Dr. Rosen took part, behaved suspiciously in the presence of the young man's corpse. Tessa urgently needs to go to the toilet during the crime scene inspection and disappears into a forest. She is later found unconscious with badly bleeding stab wounds. She threatens to bleed to death from her injuries and is in acute danger of her life. Meanwhile, Lena meets the perpetrator, but is unable to take hold of him. The injured Tessa loses her child in the hospital. Sara has to give her the promise to find the perpetrator of this act of violence. A little later, the body of student Ellen Schaffer, who found Adam Rosen, is discovered. Four people die in total. The assumption of a xenophobic or right-wing extremist act is reasonable, since Tessa has a dark-skinned friend and the two dead students were of Jewish descent. There are further suspicions against Lena Adams, who is still suffering from the trauma of an experienced rape . There is a disturbing connection to the violent skinhead and lover of Lena, Ethan Green, and a certain Richard Carter. Richard tried to pass off the research results of Lena's dead sister Sybil as his own and cruelly eliminated several people who knew about the cover-up. There is a final showdown between Lena and Richard, in which the murderer is shot by a police officer.
linguistic style
“Sara Linton watched her heavily pregnant sister come out of the Dairy Queen, a cup of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce in each hand. As Tessa crossed the parking lot, the wind picked up and the lilac-colored maternity dress billowed and fluttered up to above her knees. Tessa tried desperately to tame the dress without dropping the ice, and Sara heard her curse as she approached the car. "
“Sara counted to three, and then they turned the boy's body over as carefully as possible. "Oh shit," Chuck squeaked like a broken teenage boy. He jumped back as if the body had gone up in flames. Jeffrey flinched too. Matt turned away, choking. "Ah," said Sara. nothing else occurred to her. The lower part of the penis was almost completely skinned. A four-inch-long flap of skin hung loosely from the glans, and a series of dumbbell-shaped piercing sticks pierced the flesh at regular intervals. Sara knelt to examine the injury. Behind her, one of the men breathed sharply through her teeth as she returned the skin to its original position and examined the jagged edge of the place where the flesh had been torn from the limb. Jeffrey was the first to find the language again. "What the hell is that?""
reception
Sabine Reiss assesses the thriller Don't turn around, told from several perspectives, as a bloody and brutal crime story that begins with the “unsavory details of a corpse”. The theme of this story is the abuse of women. Including individual fates such as the former police officer Lena Adams, who repeatedly comes under suspicion, has never been able to recover from the consequences of rape and has developed a massive alcohol problem over time . Reiss criticizes the “unstructured search for the perpetrator” and the “accidental exposure of the perpetrator”. Overall, the story or the plot is "not very original". After a strong opening sequence, other reviews criticize the rapid drop in the tension arc and the confusing jumping of the individual storylines. Benjamin Brückner sees the work of the successful author as an expression of "voyerism of violence" and "sex kitsch".
Text output
- Karin Slaughter: Don't turn around . Rowohlt Verlag, 461 pages, ISBN 978-3499236495 (Original title: A Faint Cold Fear. Translated by Sophie Zeitz).
Web links
- Official homepage of the writer Karin Slaughter (German)
- Book launch of Karin Slaughter: Don't turn around at Randomhouse
- Reading sample on www.rowohlt.de
Notes and individual references
- ↑ Paperback bestseller: The butcher takes a break from torture. Helge Rehbein on SPIEGEL-Online, June 4, 2007
- ↑ Book presentation “Don't turn around”, Blanvalet paperback
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Karin Slaughter: Don't turn around. Summary on Liviato
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Don't turn around. Karin Slaughter. “It's going to be bloody again.” Crime review by Sabine Reiss on Krimicouch
- ↑ Book presentation by Karin Slaughter: "Don't turn around", Randomhouse-Verlag
- ↑ Review Karin Slaughter: Don't turn around by Benjamin Brückner