Cop Town by Karin Slaughter

[WaltBristow]

Atlanta 1974. Welcome to the old ways of southern thinking. A woman’s place back then was still in the kitchen – certainly not in the Atlanta police department. If you were a female police officer in Atlanta in the early 1970’s, you could expect to be groped, to have nasty pictures on the door to your locker room and to not have the support of male officers when you were on the streets.

Maggie is the veteran female police officer; “veteran” meaning she has lasted four years – mostly because she comes from a family of men in blue.

Kate is the new female on the force. Her well-heeled background certainly hasn’t prepared her for what she encountered as a female police officer. “The hardest battles didn’t take place on the streets. They happened inside the squad room.”

The two are thrown together as partners in the middle of a manhunt for a cop killer –a manhunt in which Kate becomes the hunted as well as the hunter.

All the action happens over a five day period. In those five days, the reader stands as a fascinated bystander watching Maggie’s world disintegrates. The first week of Kate’s service as a cop. A week from hell for Maggie.

Maggie and Kate are pulled off the manhunt. But that doesn’t stop them from violating department policy and continuing their hunt for “the Fox” – the killer who continues to kill under the noses of the Atlanta police department.
As Kate becomes more acquainted with the underbelly of the city, she becomes more aware of the demons lurking in her own subconscious. Maggie and Kate step ever so close to the line between good and evil to track down and take down the killer. Nearly killed several times, Kate calls forth the tenacity of her holocaust-survivor ancestry to gut it out. But Slaughter doesn’t let you know (and the reader is not sure) if Kate will win her battles until the very end of the book.

Slaughter does a great job of creating a historically accurate picture of life in 1974 Atlanta. If she got something wrong, I’ve not yet found it. Yes, there was new police commissioner in 1974 and he was the first black to hold that position. The black officers did meet at the Butler Street YMCA for roll call instead of the station house. And women were treated as second-class citizens. You will feel the grit of the city and the heart pounding action will keep you occupied long past bed time.

Misdirection, a fast-paced plot, heart-wrenching personal tragedy and prose that takes you into (or back to) 1974 Atlanta makes Cop Town a great read for a hot summer day.

[Katpts]

I enjoyed reading Cop Town. It transported you back into another time and it was easy to imagine Atlanta as she described. A very good read and easy to follow....