As I have mentioned before, I am an enthusiastic reader of mysteries of all kinds. I enjoy series featuring one lead detective or partners, with private eyes or amateur sleuths; and I enjoy police procedurals, legal mysteries, stuff that might be considered thrillers rather than straight-out mysteries, and even the occasional cozy. In short, my mystery tastes are pretty eclectic. And in general I am not one to shy away from stuff that can be graphic, although I don’t specifically seek it out. But everybody has their limits, and mine seems to be that I don’t want to read things that are unrelentingly dour and depressing.

After discovering the Will Trent series on TV and thoroughly enjoying it, I decided to check out Karin Slaughter’s original creation of this character and his world, and although I found the writing and story-telling to be good, I struggled with all the differences between the written and televised versions, ultimately deciding that I vastly prefer the TV show to the books and choosing not to read any more of them. This is almost sacrilegious for me, but…there it is.

I did, however, decide that I would explore some of Slaughter’s pre-Will books, so I picked up Blindsighted, the first in the Grant County series featuring pediatrician and part-time small-town coroner Sara Linton. The description sounded intriguing, and I always enjoy a female protagonist. The fact that she’s a doctor rather than a detective is a nice twist, and the connection to the law via her ex-husband, police chief Jeff Tolliver, keeps everything legitimate in terms of solving cases. In short, it sounded like something I might like. But there were a few words in the Goodreads description to which I should have paid more attention: brutal, twisted, macabre, sadistic, malevolent.

I didn’t, unfortunately, and once I got started I felt obligated to give the book a shot. In the absence of any other book waiting in the wings, I kept reading and finished it, but I have decided that the books of Karin Slaughter aren’t for me; the subject matter is just too much. This being the first in the series, I can only wonder where she goes next, after a story this grueling. I used to like Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta books—likewise headed by a medical examiner—but had to stop reading them when they got too dark. This one was too dark out of the gate.

I think there also has to be a balance in books like this: If there are going to be horrifying murders committed by deranged serial killers, you need a certain amount of balance provided by a stable and focused protagonist. That was what ultimately made me turn aside from Cornwell and, now, Slaughter: Not only were the murders gruesome and strange, but the protagonists and all those surrounding them were angry, sad, depressed, and distressed. I can take one or the other, but the entire experience can’t be an unrelenting downer.

While I have always believed that people should read outside their comfort zones in order to discover things they never knew they loved, I also believe that it’s good to be able to narrow your choices by deciding what’s okay with you and what’s not. I just found one author who is unfortunately not, even though she seems talented and writes prolifically. Too bad, but sometimes despite doing everything right, a writer isn’t for you. I’ll move on and keep looking.