Karin Slaughter's Beyond Reach is her first unabridged audio. Slaughter, a devoted audio book listener, doesn't buy a lot of abridged, though sometimes it's enough to know that "one car blows up instead of three". When the internationally famed mystery writer felt her Grant County series "needed a voice", she wanted a Southern narrator who "didn't sound like some sort of hillbilly." Joyce Bean narration is "close to the voices that I heard in my head. She does well with the subtleties of different colloquialisms and accents, honors the story and doesn't make anyone sound like they've just fallen out of a beer-soaked trailer park."

"I'm like a lot of my readers, I love reading all the time. I think I went through 10 books on my last tour and I listen to audios on planes." She's on her third listen of Annie Proulx's Accordian Crimes. "Edward Herman is such a brilliant reader...it's like he's sitting in front of a fire recalling all his stories from the past."

" If you love a series and the reader isn't what you've heard in your head all along, it's hard." She read all of Elizabeth George's books and had a distinct picture of what Barbara sounded like so the television character is hard to watch "because I keep thinking that's not what Barbara sounds like. I'm careful about making a choice about whether to listen or read series books."

Slaughter faces other series challenges in her writing. In every book she deals with the balancing act of "honoring the people who have been reading all along, not boring them with familiar details, and making new readers interested." Part of the way she pulls this off is with well-rounded characters and intense relationships. "In my books, a person never does something because he's a bad guy. I always want to explain things. Nobody is 100% good or bad. I like to think I'm a good person, but somebody cuts me off in traffic, they'll see the nasty side of me." Detective Lena Adams, is angry and in Beyond Reach you understand why. Lena's working out isn't always pretty and she's "very polarizing." "It's kinda messy, but that's how life is."

"I write for two different kinds of readers, those who want lots of actions and some good sex thrown in" and those looking for a deeper level like Beyond Reach's revelations about "the scourge of meth in small town America. A good book exists on both levels, but my primary focus is to tell a good story and keep people entertained."

Slaughter's books have another element that makes for gripping audios. "I like it when you're involved in a story and you're sure which way it's going and then it takes you in a completely different direction." Beyond Reach's has a shocker ending and fans will have to wait until 2009 when Genesis reveals what happens three years later.

Slaughter gets puzzled when people ask her why a woman would write about graphic violence. "I think it's important to show crime for what it is. Sexual predators and people who prey on women count on us not talking about it. For me, it's really important to have that dialogue."