Beyond Reach

By: Karin Slaughter

Narrated by: Joyce Bean

Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's Summary

In a stifling jail cell in a hardscrabble Georgia town, Detective Lena Adams sits in stubborn silence: bruised, angry, and the only suspect in a horrific murder that left a woman incinerated beyond recognition. One hundred miles away, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver has gotten the call that his young detective has been arrested. Jeffrey's wife, pediatrician and medical examiner Sara Linton, has little patience for Lena or her dramas. Fighting a heartbreaking malpractice suit, struggling to pick up the pieces of a shattered career, the last thing Sara needs is to see Jeffrey playing Lena's knight in shining armor. Sara cannot guess that within days she herself will be at the center of a bizarre and murderous case.

Lena has fled back to the place where she grew up hard, careening back through the shadows of her past and into a shocking underground world of bigotry and rage. The man who raised her is slowly killing himself with drugs. The man who beguiled - and beat - her is reaching out from prison. And now only Jeffrey and Sara can free Lena from the web of lies, betrayal, and brutality that has trapped her - as this powerhouse of a novel races toward its shattering climax...and a final, unforgettable twist.

©2007 Karin Slaughter (P)2007 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Can. Not. Handle. The Narration

How could the performance have been better?

I stuck with the story longer than I wanted to just out of curiosity for the storyline; however, I just couldn't handle the narration any longer. The original narrator for this series was so good that I got spoiled. I made it through the previous book with the narration change and hoped that this book would give relief, but the twangs and drawls seem over the top. The telephone conversation voices are grating. I finally googled spoilers so I could give my ears reprieve. :(

Well written, clever mystery...

Let me start this with a word about the narrator, Joyce Bean. I gave her 3 stars, even though she has a remarkable voice, especially for feminine characters. Her voice is naturally deep, but when she reads men her voice is so gravelly and rough they just aren't attractive characters. Nevertheless her performance does not get in the way of the writing. At times she is worthy of 5 stars, but the male characters dropped her score to 3 stars.

The mystery is well conceived and sadly accurate. This is because it deals with meth addicts. After finishing the book I googled "meth faces before and after" and the results were, well... Look it up for yourself. Suffice to say Slaughter couldn't exaggerate the effects meth has on a persons body if she wanted too. There's some clever writing that kept me hanging on tight till the end.

I think this is my 12th Slaughter novel in a little over 2 months. I am so lost in her fictional Grant County that I feel as if I live there. At the same time I became so frustrated with Lena, a key character in several novels, I was ready to stop listening. But this is the similar response most of her friends, coworkers and enemies have, so my hats off to Slaughter's character building skills.

This is a good book on its own, but honestly I purchased it because its a key cog in the entire Grant County/ Will Trent series.

Temporal Chaos

I regret giving this such a low rating, but the writing had serious problems. The worst is that the timeline skitters all over the place, way over the line of comprehensibility. You never know whether something is happening now or happened weeks ago. There are also odd grammatical errors that aren't enough to ruin the story, but mildly annoy -- given that she's among the rare few who know not to say "firstly" or "importantly," it seems strange she'd then misuse "comprise." The story is miserable, too. All of the major female characters have been savaged and brutalized. And the sex scenes are gratuitous rather than contributing to the meaning of the story.

AUDIO: Adequate, but there are noticeable misemphases and her low voices lose expression.

narrator very poor with male voices

This actress can not do younger male voices. The men in the story all sound like they are in their 60s. As a result, I didn't enjoy this reading as much as I did the others.

Great story, terrible narrator

Kathleen Early spoiled me early on, then Clarinda Ross came along and I learned to love her too, but this narrator is AWFUL. Believe me, it's worse if you actually live in this South...bad Southern accents make you want to commit violence. The over the top drawl sounds like they live in Tara, not Grant County. And the way they did the phone calls...just weird. They definitely did not save the best for last in the Grant County series. That said, the story itself was great. The timeline was a little mixed up, but it came together eventually. And that ending!! I couldn't believe it. I just stared at the page in shock for a solid 5 minutes. I thought it had to be a dream or something. I definitely did not see that coming!

TERRIBLE NARRATION

Especially after Kathleen Early. I'm only on the first chapter but I'm not sure if I can bear listening to Joyce Bean for 12 hours.

Bad narration

I did not like Jeffrey's voice in this one and the end so sad, i really cried

Great story, narration notsomuch

What did you love best about Beyond Reach?

Very on-par with the rest of the series. My heart ached for Sara Linton. Infuriated with Lena as always. The character development with Dr Linton was excellent in this book.

What other book might you compare Beyond Reach to and why?

I love this series! Starting Will Trent next.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

She didn't have enough differentiation between characters so the conversations were hard to follow at times. Also, even some of the women sounded like men.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The very end. I won't spoil it. it was heartbreaking.

Terrible narrator but OK story

This narrator should never try to do all the voices. The men sounded like they had smokers voices. Just awful.

This book answered many questions about Lena's life so that was good.

Sara was portrayed as a weak, sniveling wife. In the other books she is clearly a strong woman and that is much better since she is a physician and must be strong to endure all she has gone through.

Everytime Jeffrey made a move as a police officer and took a chance Sara squealed like a little girl that she was afraid he would get hurt. Good grief, he is a POLICE man not a librarian.

If you do not have anything else to read, then take a chance; if there is anything else in your library pass on this one.

Disturbing and Heartbreaking

Beyond Reach is the sixth and final installment in the Grant County series, and I am so devasted for more than one reason that I cannot stand it. This book has gutted me. I stumbled upon these books recently by a recommendation on Goodreads and have utterly immersed myself in reading them one right after another. It’s going to be hard to let them and the characters go. I think I always knew that Lena was going to cause some major trouble, and Ms. Slaughter was saving it all for this book. Chief Jeffrey Tolliver has been summoned to Lena’s hometown, where she has been arrested for murder. Taking Sara along for support, they stumble into a mystery of unimaginable proportions that puts them both into extreme danger. They only have each other to trust, as this is not their town and the local police are questionable. The good news is that Sara and Jeffrey finally have their relationship on solid ground and are adopting a baby. Jeffrey is worried about Sara, though. She is being sued for malpractice and is not her usual self-confident self. The ending of this book is heartbreaking, and that’s all I will say. I think someday I will reread these, hopefully via hardcopy books. I debated on how to rate this book. There were parts that I felt dragged a bit. Also, I listened to this on audiobook as I did the other five. Kathleen Early narrated the first four books and did an excellent job. Clarinda Ross narrated the fifth book and did a so-so job. In this last and most important book, they changed the narrator once again to Joyce Bean, whose voice was so deep I could not accept it. I finally gave the book four stars. I’m excited, though, to move on to the Will Trent series.