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" \n Karin Slaughter&amp;#039;s newest must-read thriller, Broken, serves up a can&amp;#039;t-put-down mystery with a serious side of suspense. A serial killer is loose in Grant County, and the inadequate team of corrupt policemen can&amp;#039;t seem to put an end to the murders. With twists and turns you won&amp;#039;t see coming, Slaughter delivers a truly frightening read. Here she dishes on her crime-fighting (and sometimes crime-committing) females and why she thinks feminism is due for a serious comeback.  Q: Broken unites recurring characters from both your Grant County series and the Atlanta series. By now, you must feel like you really &amp;quot;know&amp;quot; these characters. Does this make it more or less challenging to write about them?  A: It makes it difficult to show things in a new way. But it was interesting to bring Will (from the Atlanta series) into the mix. I could show the Grant County characters in a new light from his point of view. It&amp;#039;s kind of like when you go back to your old high school and say, &amp;quot;Man I can&amp;#039;t believe I was so intimidated by this dump!&amp;quot;  Q: At the heart of this novel is the intense relationship between the two main female characters: Sarah Linton and Lena Adams. To put it mildly, Sarah and Lena do not get along. Have you ever had to deal with a &amp;quot;Sarah&amp;quot; or a &amp;quot;Lena&amp;quot; in your own life?  A: I certainly went to high school with some mean girls and I would not wish that hell on anybody. But with Sarah and Lena, I didn&amp;#039;t want it to be a catfight. Lena is clueless as to why Sarah hates her so much. They don&amp;#039;t try to see the other side. It&amp;#039;s a twisted, unhealthy relationship.  Q: Do you use people you know in real life as inspiration for your characters?  A: I don&amp;#039;t take one person and say this is my version of this person. Sometimes I&amp;#039;ll be writing something from Sarah&amp;#039;s point of view and she&amp;#039;ll have an opinion about something that&amp;#039;s completely different from my opinion. And that&amp;#039;s when it&amp;#039;s fun \u2014 writing about stuff that isn&amp;#039;t normally what you feel. My job isn&amp;#039;t to preach to people, it&amp;#039;s to entertain them. I like letting the characters speak for themselves.  Q: In Broken, you explore the ins and outs of the police department in great detail. How do you research this aspect of your novels?  A: When I was growing up my stepmother&amp;#039;s sister was the chief detective in one of the adjoining towns, so she piqued my interest in crime. And I&amp;#039;ve been so fortunate because the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has let me spend time with their officers and take part in some of their training exercises. That experience has helped me understand how cops think.  Q: All of your female characters are very strong and sure of themselves \u2014 sometimes, they&amp;#039;re even the bad guys. What inspires you to create powerful and sometimes dangerous women?  A: I&amp;#039;m always conscious when I&amp;#039;m writing a story that the women in my books need to save themselves. They don&amp;#039;t need to be scooped up into a man&amp;#039;s arms and carried off into the sunset. But I also can&amp;#039;t stand when writers feature a really strong female character and then make all the men around her incredibly weak and subservient to the woman. That&amp;#039;s not how it goes in life. The strong women I know are with men who go head-to-head with them. They don&amp;#039;t want someone they can walk all over.  Q: Your books have that &amp;#039;edge-of-your-seat&amp;#039; effect. Do you ever freak yourself out when you&amp;#039;re writing?  A: I have it mapped out. Fear comes from not knowing what&amp;#039;s coming next. And I always know what&amp;#039;s coming next in my books. And I know &amp;quot;my people&amp;quot; are safe.  Q: How did you decide that you wanted to write crime books?  A: The best stories all have an element of crime. Gone with the Wind has a murder in it, To Kill a Mocking Bird is about an alleged rape, Water for Elephants opens up with a very violent murder. Talking about crime is the best way to talk about society. Crime is something we&amp;#039;re all interested in and that we&amp;#039;re all afraid of.  Q: You&amp;#039;ve said before that your first manuscript was rejected \u2014 a lot. Do you have any tips for staying focused and driven when the going gets tough?  A: My agent sent out my manuscript and I got seven rejection letters. After being upset for a couple days I realized here&amp;#039;s this great opportunity to have all these editors in New York critique your work for free. They really liked my writing style but the story didn&amp;#039;t work for them \u2014 so I decided to write a thriller....Which became a best seller. But it took me six years to find an agent before that happened.  Q: How did you not get discouraged?  A: I guess it&amp;#039;s a little bit of arrogance and stupidity. I just thought that it would happen eventually if I worked hard enough. I believe if you work hard enough you&amp;#039;ll get what you want.  Q: Any tips you&amp;#039;ve learned on your route to success that you can share with readers?  A: We need to build up women. That&amp;#039;s the take-home message for a lot of my books. Women can be our best allies and our worst enemies. We can be so nasty to each other. Not participating in that nastiness does all of us a great favor in helping each other and reaching out to each other. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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