Summary of “Kisscut” by Karin Slaughter

It was a Saturday night, during an annual event, when Sara Linton encountered Jenny Weaver in the toilet with her shirt covered by blood stains. Sara Linton is the pediatrician, the medic, and also the ex-wife of Jeffrey Tolliver. Not long after that, Jeffrey Tolliver, the Grant County chief saw a group of teenagers in the parking lot. One of them was a female, holding and pointing a Beretta .32 to another male teenager. Jeffrey did all the things he had to do as the chief to end that, but he had given no other choice except shot the girl. So he did. All the apparatus had been working on the case since then. Sara worked on the Jenny’s body and the new baby born in the toilet. The first presumption is Jenny aborted her baby. Jeffrey, Lena, and other police and detective are also investigating and searching for more data and information. They all are trying to find out why a thirteen-year old girl would abort a baby in the toilet in the middle of an event, had the indication of sexual abusing, and pointed a gun to someone. The searching has widen to Jenny’s mother—Dottie Weaver, the girl she usually hanged out with—Lacey Patterson, the young man he pointed a gun at which also happened to be her former boyfriend and her best friend’s brother—Mark Patterson, the preacher, the teacher, basically to everyone that had the connection. After Lacey was saved from kidnaping, every guessing and mysteries slowly revealed and made senses. The aborted baby was Grace Patterson’s with her son, Mark, was the father. Grace and Dottie turned out to be predators and make children nudity magazines as their sick business. It involved the preacher—Dave Fine. Many children in the area were the victims. Jenny’s genital was sewn by herself and continued by Dottie and Grace (sexually abusing) because she thought it could purify her as a girl. She had slept with many young men. The reason why she pointed a gun and tried to kill Mark was she knew if she did not, all of the rotten secrets she knew would never be exposed. Sara, Jeffrey, Lana, and others keep on working. Their friends and families are doing OK. Grace is gone due to breast cancer. Lacey and Mark are doing better, even though Mark is in hospital after trying to hang himself. Dave is in state’s jail, while Dottie escaped the chase and now is being somewhere out there, maybe starting to do her sick work again.

This novel is somewhat a psychological thriller. It gives the reader the traumatized feeling of children sexual harassments. It somehow will make the sympathy of anyone comes out—as the adults, moreover as the human being. Karin Slaughter delivered the story well and is very organized about the timeline and the point of views. It makes the reader understands the plot easily.