For those who like to cut to the chase, here it is. Indelible, Karin Slaughter's latest book, is excellent summertime reading: a taut, compelling thriller that weaves together two criminal investigations conducted more than a decade apart in a riveting story that careens toward an explosive conclusion.

The book is Slaughter's fourth tale featuring Grant County, Georgia, medical examiner Sara Linton and her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver. The story starts innocently enough, as Linton visits the police station to talk to Tolliver, ostensibly about an autopsy report but really to discuss why she rejected his recent marriage proposal (the latest twist in their tumultuous relationship, which has played itself out over the course of the series). The station's routine is unhurried and unruffled: one officer gives a tour to a group of school children and the old woman behind the counter gives Sara a hard time in the manner of many small towns where everyone seems to know far too much about the intimate details of other people's lives.

But that calm is violently disrupted by the arrival of two young men armed with Kevlar vests and automatic weapons. Moving with military precision, they dispatch a number of the officers and shoot Jeffrey. Sara and another officer manage to help several of the children escape, but she and the rest are trapped in the station with their assailants in what quickly becomes a tense hostage situation. The attackers are cold, calculating killers operating on an agenda all their own. Sara's only clues are the fact that at least one of them seems to recognize her, and that they seem to be fixated upon Jeffrey, who they appear to believe was killed in the initial assault.

This story plays out against the backdrop of history, most notably the early days of Sara and Jeffrey's relationship more than ten years earlier, when he took her to his hometown of Sylacuaga, Alabama, and they were quickly embroiled in a murder investigation. One of Jeffrey's childhood friends shoots a man he claims was a prowler who threatened his wife, but the story - and the physical evidence Sara uncovers - don't add up. Sara and Jeffrey are forced to conduct their own investigation under the watchful eye of not only John "Hoss" Hollister, the town's police chief and father figure to both Jeffrey and the man under suspicion for murder, but also a number of other folks in town (none of whom, it appears, have any reason to view Jeffrey with anything but distrust and suspicion themselves).