I finished watching the first season of the tv series Will Trent last week. I used to the read the books by Karin Slaughter the series is based on, as well as the author’s Sara Linton books several years ago – all that had been translated to Finnish at the time – and liked them a lot. I read probably about a dozen of them all in all, across the two series but then run out of them and sort of forgot about it. So when I saw a few months ago that a tv series based on the Will Trent books was coming out, I was immediately curious but not very hopeful (I have such bad experience with Kathryn Reichs’s Temperance Brennan books turned into an awful tv series).
Turns out I enjoy Will Trent the tv series very much! I love the diverse casting, especially Iantha Richardson as Faith Mitchell and Sonja Sohn (who has always been good in all the roles I’ve seen her in) as Amanda Wagner. Sonja Sohn’s portrayal of Amanda particularly matches my memory of the character from the books, but I think all three (Iantha, Sonja and Ramón Rodríguez as Will Trent) do an excellent job in their respective roles. The writers and the actors have done a really outstanding job remaining true to the spirits and personalities of these characters from the books even if their ethnicity is different in the tv show.
What baffles me is Angie Polaski (played by Erika Christensen, also doing a good job) because my memory of her is that Angie is pretty much just evil and certainly not one of the good guy. I can’t remember at all whether she’s a cop in the books too, like in the show? The tv character is messed up, but she’s trying to be and do good and is certainly one of the good guys. Her relationship with with Will seems co-dependent but nothing like the abusive, destructive relationship I remember from the books. I just wonder why she’s been changed so much when the other main characters are true in spirit to their book counterparts? I don’t mind, I like tv Angie! If they’d kept Angie as she in the books, I wouldn’t like that she has so much screen time (being one of the three main characters) because she’d be so unpleasant to watch in an unfun way.
Spurred on by the tv series, I search out a Will Trent/Sara Linton book I hadn’t read yet and last night I finished reading The Silent Wife and I was reminded how much I liked Slaughter’s writing! Surely there’s now more books in both the series that have come out, I can’t wait to find out. While I was reading, I noticed I was seeing Sonja Sohn as Amanda and Iantha as Faith so I guess their performances really impressed me! I like it. I didn’t remember that Lena Adams was so incompetent! In the “8 years ago” portions of the book, she made serious, disastrous mistakes one after another directly leading to a death of a witness, a disaster with a suspect with serious injuries to her boss and the suspect, and her boss and Lena herself and possibly other officers having to lie to get a what turnout to be a pedophile (who had been preparing to kidnap a child, as they realized in the middle of action) off the street. All that in just one book. I can’t believe she’s still a cop in the book’s present!
On the other hand, the personal problem between Will and Sara in The Silent Wife was stupid. All they had to do was to talk to each other.
I’m very much looking forward to season 2 of Will Trent, and also looking forward to reading the Will Trent and Sara Linton books that I’ve missed. I’m very glad to have re-discovered these books!