CANR
WORK TITLE: This is Why We Lied
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.karinslaughter.com/
CITY: Atlanta
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: CANR 312
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born January 6, 1971, in Jonesboro, GA.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Former owner of a sign business. Founder of Save the Libraries nonprofit organization.
AVOCATIONS:Rock climbing, fencing, running.
AWARDS:Edgar Award for Best Short Story, Mystery Writers of America, 2013, for “The Unremarkable Heart”; Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, Crime Writers’ Association, 2015, for Cop Town; Reading List winner in the adrenaline category, 2016, for Pretty Girls.
WRITINGS
Also author of novellas and short stories, including Martin Misunderstood, Random House (London, England), 2008; Snatched (“Will Trent” series), Dell (New York, NY), 2012; The Unremarkable Heart and Other Stories (audiobook), read by Shannon Cochran, AudioGO/Recorded Books (North Kingstown, RI), 2012; and (with Lee Child) Cleaning the Gold: A Jack Reacher and Will Trent Short Story, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2020. Contributor to anthologies, including Tart Noir, edited by Stella Duffy and Lauren Henderson, Berkley Prime Crime, 2002; The Mystery Box (“Mystery Writers of America Presents”),edited by Brad Meltzer, Grand Central Pub. (New York, NY), 2013; and Matchup, edited by Lee Child, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2017. Slaughter’s works have been translated into more than thirty languages.
Pieces of Her has been adapted into a Netflix television series, 2022, with The Good Daughter in development, while the “Will Trent” series has been adapted by ABC and Hulu, 2023–.
SIDELIGHTS
Renowned thriller author Karin Slaughter spent her childhood in rural Georgia and initially aspired to become a lawyer. Instead, she owned and operated a sign shop until she was twenty-five, when she left the business to begin writing novels. She made a name for herself with the “Grant County” series, which draws on her long association with the Deep South to depict the dark side of small-town life. Slaughter has garnered more praise for her long-running “Will Trent” series, which became a hit adaptation on ABC, as well as the burgeoning “Andrea Oliver” series and stand-alone works. [open new]BookTrib contributor Dawn Ius remarked, “Karin Slaughter fans always know what they’re in for—gritty, propulsive, unflinching, and perhaps most notably, unabashedly topical thrillers, no matter how controversial or harrowing.”
About her early affection for literature, Slaughter told Sandra Ebejer of Shondaland: “As a child, it was my haven to be at the library. I loved sitting in the stacks every Saturday. My dad let me read any book I wanted. It was the gift of my life to be able to have access to reading. It taught me so much about the world.” Two of her childhood favorites were the “Nancy Drew” and “Encyclopedia Brown” series. The seriousness of criminality became apparent to her by age ten, when the Atlanta area was convulsed by a serial killer whose twenty-eight victims over two years were mostly teens and children. In view of news coverage, Slaughter told Connor Reed of Publishers Weekly, “It made me very aware from a young age that crime exists and it can change people’s communities. That’s what I like to write about in my novels—not the crime so much as what it leaves behind.”
The financial downturn of 2008, when tightened municipal budgets meant that some libraries faced threats of closure, inspired Slaughter to found the nonprofit Save the Libraries. Over the next decade and a half and counting the organization funneled over half a million dollars to helping keep libraries open for children’s and everyone’s use.[suspend new]
"Grant County" Series
The first novel in the “Grant County” series, Blindsighted, introduces readers to the three main protagonists: Sara Linton, a county coroner and local pediatrician; Sara’s ex-husband Jeffrey Tolliver, the chief of police; and Lena Adams, the only female police officer on the force. The three are brought together when Sara discovers Sybil Adams, Lena’s twin sister, raped and murdered in the bathroom of a local diner. When another young woman is reported missing, it appears that a serial killer may be on the loose. Sara is particularly intent on seeing the killer brought to justice, but in order to do so, she must reveal a secret from her past.
In an interview for Mystery One Bookstore, Slaughter remarked: “What I was going for was a thriller—a book with a roller coaster kind of arc. I’ve read so many mysteries and thrillers that I know what fans come to expect when a character gets into a certain kind of situation. What I wanted to do was turn those situations around so that the reader says, ‘Oh, I know what comes next,’ then is shocked when it doesn’t.”
Library Journal reviewer Rebecca House Stankowski called Blindsighted “an extremely mature first novel, with well-developed characters and a finely tuned plot; it also has a creepy killer and enough gory details to satisfy any Thomas Harris fan.” In the Washington Post, Patrick Anderson hailed the novel as “horrifically violent and wildly readable.”
Sara, Lena, and Jeffrey return in the second novel in the “Grant County” series, Kisscut. The novel opens when Sara decides to meet Jeffrey at a local roller rink. On the way she comes across a dead baby and a teenager covered in blood. What Sara, Lena, and Jeffrey discover throughout the course of their investigation leads to a startling conclusion. Ali Karim, reviewing the book for Shots, wrote: “ Kisscut is a hard read for those of a weaker constitution, and like Blindsighted, it took me to places that sometimes are now hard to erase from my mind. It also gave me nightmares, because I fell in love with the concept of this rural idyll sitting on top of an old and sinister evil.”
In Slaughter’s third “Grant County” novel, A Faint Cold Fear, Lena has left the police force after having refused psychological counseling and now works as a security guard at the local college. When a student apparently commits suicide, Sara and Jeffrey are called in to investigate, but the investigation goes awry when Sara’s pregnant sister is stabbed near the crime scene. Soon it becomes clear that the two crimes may be related and that Lena is romantically involved with the prime suspect. While a Kirkus Reviews contributor felt that the plot is “the least coherent and satisfying in the series thus far,” the same contributor also found that Slaughter’s psychological insight compares favorably to suspense authors Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs. A Publishers Weekly reviewer also suggested that “those who make it through the complexities and the gore will be rewarded with a satisfyingly chilling ending.”
In Indelible, Sara’s visit to Jeffrey at the local police station is interrupted by a pair of gun-wielding youths, who seriously wound several police officers and take Jeffrey hostage. The plot jumps between the ensuing standoff and scenes from Jeffrey and Sara’s past, where dark secrets that relate to both their relationship and the present-day attack are revealed. “What’s even more disturbing here than the graphically detailed violence,” wrote Joanne Wilkinson in Booklist, “is the creepy atmosphere.”
Faithless opens to another grisly discovery, when a young woman is found buried alive in the forest. The investigation into her death leads to a local cult that employs the practice as a punishment, revealing even darker secrets. Meanwhile, Lena must cope with her own history of abusive relationships while dealing with a former cult member reluctant to come forward with information about the cult. Reviewers praised the book for its insight into women’s issues. Slaughter casts “a compassionate eye on a brace of female victims and still manages to come across as the toughest cookie in Georgia,” commented a Kirkus Reviews contributor, while a Publishers Weekly writer remarked that “issues of abortion, domestic abuse and forgiveness afford these recurring female characters three-dimensional humanity.”
In Beyond Reach, the sixth book in the “Grant County” series, Sara and Jeffrey are remarried. Lena becomes a suspect after she is discovered at the scene of a crime—the killing of a woman in the explosion of a vehicle. Lena is found badly beaten in the bleachers at the football field of her former high school while the car smolders on the turf. She had come home to Reese, Georgia, to visit her uncle, Hank Norton, a former meth addict who raised her, and finds that the town is in the control of a corrupt law department and drug-dealing skinheads. Jeffrey and Sara, who is embroiled in a complex medical malpractice suit that could end her career, travel to Reese to help Lena, who escapes custody with their help. They link the crime to the Brotherhood of the True White Skin, which is also responsible for the death of Lena’s twin sister. They get no help from Hank, who is using again.
Joe Hartlaub wrote in his review for Bookreporter: “The pacing of the plot and narrative is simply breathtaking. Slaughter’s descriptive powers reach new heights here and are unitized to particular—and sometimes peculiar—effect in the midst of several dark passages that gaze unflinchingly into the stark result of violence.” In reviewing this installment for Curled Up with a Good Book, Angela McQuay wrote: “Slaughter’s talent for plot and character development and her complete lack of fear in going to the darkest places of the human spirit have made her a star in her field.”
"Will Trent" Series
In 2006, Slaughter departed from the “Grant County” series to write the opening salvo of the “Will Trent” thriller series, Triptych, which features three main characters: Michael Ormewood, a detective with a mentally ill son; John Shelley, who served twenty years in prison for a crime he did not commit; and Will Trent, a state agent who is hiding his severe dyslexia. On the trail of a serial rapist-murderer in urban Atlanta, Georgia, the secrets of their past come together in unexpected ways. Critics applauded Slaughter’s new writing effort. A Kirkus Reviews contributor found that “the volcanic heroes and villains, who act both surprisingly and logically, are a welcome sign that Slaughter’s trademark franchise only hints at the range of her gifts.”
In Fractured, the second “Will Trent” novel, the story once again depicts a violent crime. Slaughter discussed this topic her home page, stating: “In my writing, I want to show violence for what it is. For so long, women weren’t expected to talk about these crimes, even though we were more likely to be the victims. I think it’s time we started talking about rape and violence against women. … This isn’t to say that men are not capable of writing about these topics, only that women authors bring a different perspective.” The story portrays Abigail Campano, a wealthy homemaker who discovers what she believes is the body of her teenage daughter, Emma, in their mansion. The body is maimed beyond recognition, and further investigation reveals that the victim is in fact Emma’s friend Kayla Alexander. Before Abigail learns of the mix-up, however, she tracks down and kills the murderer in a vengeful rage. Emma, though, has been kidnapped, and Will Trent must find her before it is too late. Detective Faith Mitchell is also on the case.
Praising the story in Booklist, Joanne Wilkinson noted that “Slaughter brings breakneck pacing and emotional intensity to what could well be a series compelling enough to rival her ‘Grant County’ novels.” A Publishers Weekly contributor was also impressed, stating that “Trent and Mitchell, a pair of complex and deeply flawed heroes, will leave fans” wanting more. Likewise, a Kirkus Reviews writer noted that “fans [will be] swept up in the story’s relentless drive.” Colleen S. Harris, reviewing the novel in Library Journal, stated that it is “an excellent exploration of the universal hopes, fears, and dangers … of a city.”
Yet more approbation was proffered by Marge Fletcher on Bookreporter: “Slaughter assembles a plot very differently from other writers in the thriller genre. The reader is expected to think beyond the information given, to expand their knowledge beyond the facts.” Based on this assessment, Fletcher concluded that Slaughter’s storytelling technique “actually is a surprising and refreshing tribute to her audience.” A contributor to Memorable TV commented that Fractured is “tense, fast of pace (all the action takes place over just a few days) and full of moments that leave you gasping,” and added that “Trent is an intriguing lead.” A contributor to the literary blog Bookworm’s World observed that Slaughter is known for her “unusual characters and unexpected twists” and remarked that the novel kept the reviewer “engrossed right to the end.”
The “Will Trent” series continues with Undone, in which Slaughter combines characters from both her series. Sara Linton, from the “Grant County” series teams up with Will Trent and Faith Mitchell. Since losing her husband, Jeffrey, Linton left her rural county, and now works in an Atlanta hospital. After an apparent victim of torture shows up in Linton’s emergency room, she, Will, and Faith have to dig into the victim’s life. The woman was hit by a car when escaping from a torture chamber. Will is able to find the bunker-like chamber and the body of a second victim. Now it is a race against time to stop this sadistic killer.
Library Journal reviewer Colleen Harris felt that this “fast-paced read … contains enough twists to keep even the most veteran mystery reader guessing.” Similarly, a Publishers Weekly critic felt that “Slaughter ups the emotional ante with every twist and turn in this disturbing thriller,” while Booklist contributor Allison Block noted that the author “serves up interestingly flawed characters and grisly forensics in this suspenseful series entry.”
In Broken, Slaughter once again teams up Dr. Sara Linton with Will Trent. Sara is back in Grant County for Thanksgiving, but she is soon pulled into the investigation of the murder of a young female college student and the local mentally disabled youth, Tommy Braham, whom police have arrested for the murder. When Tommy dies while in custody, Sara immediately calls in Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) special agent Trent to take over the case. She has no love for these local police, especially Detective Lena Adams. She holds Adams responsible for the death of her husband. Arriving in Grant County, Will must navigate the wary local police, decide if Sara’s animus toward Adams has blurred the facts, and also try to determine who actually killed the college student.
“Slaughter keeps the emotional tension high throughout,” noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer. A Kirkus Reviews critic also lauded Broken, observing: “As usual in this white-hot series …, the ongoing psychological warfare and the physical violence that punctuates it are far more memorable than the unmasking of the real killer.” Higher praise came from Booklist contributor Joanne Wilkinson, who concluded: “Slaughter’s latest entry in her series overlays the standard police procedural with a burning sense of social justice.”
Fallen focuses on Special Agent Faith Mitchell of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who arrives late at her mother’s house to pick up her infant daughter and walks into a shootout. She kills two home intruders as they are trying to escape, discovers a dead man in the laundry room and another body in the trunk of her mother’s car. Her baby is locked in a shed, and her mother, a retired police officer, is missing. The subsequent investigation unearths clues from a decade earlier when Faith’s mother headed a police unit that was involved in corruption. Faith’s partner, Will, is on the case; in addition, his affair with Sara Linton is heating up.
“Slaughter has always known how to pace the suspense in her stellar crime novels, but she really outdoes herself here,” wrote Booklist reviewer Wilkinson. Similarly, a Publishers Weekly contributor felt that this “gripping” thriller is “sure to please Slaughter’s many fans.”
In the 2012 installment Criminal, Will and Sara continue to deepen their relationship, but soon it takes a backseat to an abduction case of a nineteen-year-old college student. Will is told by his boss, Deputy Director Amanda Wagner, to stay away from this case, but this only serves to make him more interested in it. In a flashback, readers learn that Amanda, along with Evelyn Mitchell, Faith’s mother, were fellow police rookies in 1975 and despite demands from other officers they refused to stop their investigation of missing prostitutes. Now the past and present coalesce.
A Publishers Weekly reviewer had praise for Slaughter’s “attentive eye for character and carefully metered violence” in this “tense … thriller.” For a Kirkus Reviews critic Criminal is a “jolting case that involves murders separated by 40 years but united in ugliness.” Similarly, Booklist contributor Wilkinson concluded: “Slaughter delivers another riveting, pulse-pounding crime novel.”
Will Trent goes undercover in Unseen, posing as an ex-con to worm his way into a drug and sex-trafficking ring run by the infamous Big Whitey. He is working with Detective Lena Adams, now with the Macon police, on the case. Will’s lover, Sara, does not know he is working with this woman whom she still blames for the death of her husband, Jeffrey. To complicate matters, Jeffrey’s son from his first marriage, Jared (and thus Sara’s stepson), has married Lena Adams. As Adams gets closer to the drug kingpin she is hunting, she and her husband are brutally attacked in their home. Now Sara arrives in Macon to visit her badly wounded stepson. Meanwhile, Will finds it difficult to maintain his undercover stance.
Library Journal reviewer Kristin Centorcelli termed Unseen a “superb and emotionally wrenching thriller.” A Publishers Weekly critic also had a high assessment of this thriller, noting that the “twisted plot and shocking reveals remind readers why Slaughter remains a dominant voice in crime fiction.” Likewise, Wilkinson, writing again in Booklist, found this installment “another intense read, on multiple levels, from the ever-reliable Slaughter.”
[resume new]Will Trent’s ex-wife Angie Polaski comes back into the picture in The Kept Woman, the next series installment. Basketball celebrity Marcus Rippy is implicated when the corpse of a retired cop turns up at his nightclub, having been murdered at a construction site—where blood of Polaski’s is found. Trent and Linton must connect the dots as corruption at a sports-management firm and more bodies come into focus. In Booklist Michele Leber declared that “suspense that continually ratchets upward” and a “revealing look at domestic violence in all levels of society” make for “prime Slaughter, must-read fare.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer found in The Kept Woman “an intense look at the nature of loss and control, and how love can taint both.”
Trent and Linton are angling toward marriage in The Last Widow, except their arrival at the scene of a bombing and apparent car accident at Emory University result in Will gettting beaten and Sara getting kidnapped. Brought to the camp of the militant white-nationalist Invisible Patriot Army, led by the disreputable Dash, Sara is expected to help ailing children recover, but their persistent unwellness points to a pattern of unthinkable abuse—and a diabolical broader plan. A Kirkus Reviews writer suggested that “even the most ardent fans of Slaughter’s white-hot thrillers will be shocked and horror-stricken by the outrage Dash has planned.” Affirming that “vivid characters and rapidly escalating stakes complement the riveting, adrenaline-fueled plot,” a Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded that “thriller fans will devour this visceral, gratifying entry.”
The plot of The Silent Wife, the tenth “Will Trent” book, is set in motion as prison inmate Daryl Nesbitt offers to help an investigation if Trent and his partner will reopen his conviction for pedophilia. Crooked policing may have been involved—possibly by Sara’s deceased police-chief husband—and the person responsible for the rape and murder of Grant Tech students may still be on the loose. A Kirkus Reviews writer observed of The Silent Wife, “More slow-burning than most of Slaughter’s shockers, this one will still rattle you down to your bones.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer called this volume “an unflinching, deeply empathetic exploration of the stigma surrounding rape and the enduring trauma suffered by its survivors.”
After That Night revolves around the trial of the young man accused of raping and beating ninteen-year-old Dani Cooper, whose last gasping words were heard only by Sara Linton. The young man’s parents, Mac and Britt McAllister were medical-intern rivals of Sara’s, and Britt hints that Dani’s rape is connected to Sara’s rape fifteen years earlier, reopening the trauma. When Will and Sara investigate, they find evidence of multiple cover-ups protecting a privileged rapist from prosecution. A Kirkus Reviews writer remarked that “it’s a signal achievement of Slaughter that the climactic revelations add still another layer of horror” to this “grueling, pitiless, yet compassionate anatomy of rape for readers who can take it.”
Upon finally getting married, Will and Sara hope to enjoy their honeymoon in This Is Why We Lied, but the manager of remote McAlpine Lodge gets murdered in one of the cabins. Suspicion falls on Mercy’s abusive ex-husband, her ill-tempered parents, and a guest with knowledge of Mercy’s checkered past. With family secrets looming large, a Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that the “subject matter gets almost operatically bleak, but Slaughter saves the day with her gifts for suspense and characterization.” Christine Tran of Booklist proclaimed that “Slaughter’s skillfully nuanced portrayal of the investigation, exposing abuse, manipulation, and desperate greed, creates a disturbingly realistic page-turner.”
“Andrea Oliver” Series
Slaughter introduces a fresh protagonist in the mystery-laden Pieces of Her, originally written as a stand-alone novel. Andrea Oliver has returned to Belle Isle, Georgia, after her speech-therapist mother Laura’s diagnosis with breast cancer. When a shooter opens fire in a mall café and Laura coolly ends the carnage, Andrea realizes her mother has been leading a double life—which she is compelled to investigate when Laura protects Andrea from future danger by sending her away. With the narrative skipping between Andrea’s present efforts and Laura’s astounding past, Booklist reviewer Rebecca Vnuk observed that “readers will find themselves totally immersed in the suspenseful, alternating story lines and won’t want either of them to end.” Pieces of Her inspired a Kirkus Reviews writer to suggest, “Reading anything by Slaughter is like riding a particularly scary amusement park ride. Reading this one is like booking a season ticket on a ride that never lets you off.”
Andrea Oliver has become a U.S. marshal in Girl, Forgotten. Assigned to protect Judge Esther Rose Vaughn, who has been receiving lurid threats, Andrea digs into the case of Esther’s daughter, Emily. As a teenager Emily was mysteriously impregnated, shunned by her family and peers, and brutally assaulted. Emily survived long enough to give birth to Judith, and family connections hold the key to Andrea’s investigation. With the author bringing “her trademark intensity to every relationship she lays bare,” a Kirkus Reviews writer likened reading Girl, Forgotten to “touching a live wire that continues across three generations.”[suspend new]
Stand-Alone Novels
Slaughter published the stand-alone novel Cop Town in 2014. Atlanta police officer Maggie Lawson comes from a family with deep ties to the force but she faces discrimination based on her gender. A cop killer nicknamed the Shooter has been ambushing cops and causing a stir in the city. She has been sidelined from working on the case but teams up with rookie Kate Murphy to conduct their own investigations rather than sit idly.
In a review in Bookreporter, Hartlaub lauded that Cop Town “is not a gritty novel; in fact, it goes beyond gritty. Scrape the dirt and grime off the street, and you’ll find the story taking place on the strata beneath. This is one of the most brutally realistic books that I have read in recent memory; Slaughter’s literary talents are given full rein here, and the results are stunning. Cop Town is one of this year’s must-read books.” Writing in Huffington Post, Jackie K. Cooper opined that “Slaughter books are always good reads but somehow this latest novel, Cop Town, is even better than she usually writes. That is high praise indeed.” In a review in the Denver Post, Oline H. Cogdill mentioned that Slaughter’s “evocative look at Atlanta during a watershed decade for the city adds to the plot.” Writing in Press and Journal, Roddy Brooks observed that “Slaughter ratchets up the tension to the very end.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews pointed out that “there’s nothing pretty about this divided cop town, but in exposing its ugliness, Slaughter forces us to question whether times really have changed.”
In 2015 Slaughter published the novel Pretty Girls. Claire is devastated when her millionaire husband is killed by a mugger. But an attempted robbery during his funeral reveals that he may have been hiding a great deal from her. She asks her struggling sister, Lydia, to help her get through the difficult period and also look into what his secrets were.
Writing in Bookreporter, Hartlaub commented that “the journey on which Slaughter takes her readers is a graphic and horrific one. The book will be difficult for the faint-hearted, though perhaps it is that group that needs it the most. While a work of fiction, it has the power in its message to literally save lives.” Reviewing the novel in Huffington Post, Cooper insisted that “ Pretty Girls is one of the year’s most fascinating stories, told with the creatively inventive touch of a true master of suspense. It is also a story that will stay with you for a long time after you have closed its pages.” This time reviewing the novel in Columbus Dispatch, Cogdill suggested that “Slaughter’s unflinching descriptions of violence are never gratuitous but are not for the faint of heart.” Cogdill continued: “The author’s trademark of complex plots coupled with character studies makes Pretty Girls another standout.” Writing in Library Journal, Kristin Centorcelli claimed that “Slaughter’s longtime fans will be thrilled,” appending that “new readers will be hooked on this twisted tale.”
[re-resume new]The Good Daughter centers on sisters Sam and Charlie, whose lives were changed irrevocably when thugs seeking vengeance against their lawyer father, Rusty Quinn, invaded their home, killed their mother, and brought the teens into the woods for an ordeal they barely survived. Thirty years later, Charlie happens to walk into a middle school when a shooting breaks out. Beyond the reopened trauma, which tests the sisters’ bond as much as ever, Rusty aims to defend the the goth girl who wielded the gun. Assessing The Good Daughter for Kirkus Reviews, a contributor stated, “It’s hard to think of any writer since Flannery O’Connor, referenced at several key moments here, who’s succeeded as consistently as Slaughter at using horrific violence to evoke pity and terror.” Vnuk was moved to remark in Booklist, “It’s not hyperbolic to declare that Slaughter is a master of her craft.”
Victimized sisters also appear in False Witness, but in this case they exacted revenge. After years of sexual abuse by the father of the boy she babysat, twelve-year-old Callie and sister Leigh murdered him and covered up the crime. Now an attorney, Leigh gets requested by a client who claims to be the boy, now named Andrew Tenant, who hints that he knows of the sisters’ crime–and aims to blackmail Leigh to help clear him of a rape and murder charge When Leigh and Callie, who turned to heroin after a gymnastics accident, realize the danger Andrew represents, outwitting him becomes of paramount importance. In Booklist Christine Tran affirmed that “Slaughter’s latest is pitch-perfect storytelling.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer related, “A shocking tragedy at the end will keep readers transfixed. Slaughter is writing at the top of her game.”[close new]
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
AudioFile, February-March, 2008, Susie Wilde, “Talking with Karin Slaughter,” p. 47.
Book, January-February, 2002, review of Blindsighted, p. 40.
Booklist, August, 2001, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Blindsighted, p. 2099; September 1, 2003, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 8; July, 2004, review of Indelible, p. 1800; July 1, 2005, review of Faithless, p. 1878; May 15, 2006, review of Triptych, p. 6; June 1, 2007, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Beyond Reach, p. 4; May 15, 2008, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Fractured, p. 5; May 15, 2009, Allison Block, review of Undone, p. 6; May 1, 2010, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Broken, p. 18; May 15, 2011, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Fallen, p. 21; May 1, 2012, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Criminal, p. 28; June 1, 2013, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Unseen, p. 42; May 1, 2014, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Cop Town, p. 20; June 1, 2016, Michele Leber, review of The Kept Woman, p. 51; June 1, 2017, Rebecca Vnuk, review of The Good Daughter, p. 59; May 1, 2018, Rebecca Vnuk, review of Pieces of Her, p. 31; July 1, 2019, Michele Leber, review of The Last Widow, p. 27; May 1, 2020, Michele Leber, review of The Silent Wife, p. 47; May 15, 2021, Christine Tran, review of False Witness, p. 23; June 1, 2023, Christine Tran, review of After That Night, p. 36; June 1, 2024, Christine Tran, review of This Is Why We Lied, p. 39.
Bookseller, June 27, 2008, review of Fractured, p. 14.
Columbus Dispatch, September 28, 2015, Oline H. Cogdill, review of Pretty Girls.
Denver Post, June 24, 2014, Oline H. Cogdill, review of Cop Town.
Entertainment Weekly, July 30, 2004, Karen Karbo, review of Indelible, p. 73; September 2, 2005, Jennifer Reese, review of Faithless, p. 83; August 3, 2007, Lindsay Soll, review of Beyond Reach, p. 73; August 1, 2008, Clark Collis, review of Fractured, p. 65.
Independent (London, England), June 22, 2008, Danuta Kean, “Karin Slaughter: The Crime Writer Reveals Why She Doesn’t Flinch from Extreme Violence,” review of Blindsighted, p. C4.
Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2003, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 996; June 15, 2005, review of Faithless, p. 668; June 1, 2006, review of Triptych, p. 543; July 1, 2007, review of Beyond Reach; July 1, 2008, review of Fractured; May 15, 2010, review of Broken; June 1, 2011, review of review of Fallen; June 15, 2012, review of Criminal; July 1, 2013, review of Unseen; May 1, 2014, review of Cop Town; July 15, 2015, review of Pretty Girls; August 1, 2017, review of The Good Daughter; June 1, 2018, review of Pieces of Her; July 1, 2019, review of The Last Widow; August 1, 2020, review of The Silent Wife; July 1, 2021, review of False Witness; August 1, 2022, review of Girl, Forgotten; June 15, 2023, review of After That Night; August 15, 2024, review of This Is Why We Lied.
Library Journal, August, 2001, Rebecca House Stankowski, review of Blindsighted, p. 166; July 1, 2008, Colleen S. Harris, review of Fractured, p. 68; July 1, 2009, Colleen Harris, review of Undone, p. 92; March 1, 2013, review of Unseen, p. 9; June 15, 2013, Kristin Centorcelli, review of Unseen, p. 86; August 1, 2015, Kristin Centorcelli, review of Pretty Girls, p. 89; August, 2023, review of After That Night, p. 64.
New York Times Book Review, July 22, 2018, “Karin Slaughter,” p. 7.
Press and Journal, July 26, 2014, Roddy Brooks, review of Cop Town.
Publishers Weekly, August 6, 2001, review of Blindsighted, p. 59; August 25, 2003, review of A Faint Cold Fear, p. 35; July 12, 2004, review of Indelible, p. 43; June 27, 2005, review of Faithless, p. 41; June 12, 2006, review of Triptych, p. 32; June 11, 2007, review of Beyond Reach, p. 38; May 12, 2008, review of Fractured, p. 35; May 12, 2008, Jordan Foster, “PW Talks with Karin Slaughter: Girls and Violence,” p. 32; June 1, 2009, review of Undone, p. 33; May 24, 2010, review of Broken, p. 34; May 2, 2011, review of Fallen, p. 38; May 28, 2012, review of Criminal, p. 71; June 3, 2013, review of Unseen, p. 39; July 25, 2016, review of The Kept Woman, p. 46; June 24, 2019, review of The Last Widow, p. 146; May 18, 2020, review of The Silent Wife, p. 37; May 31, 2021, review of False Witness, p. 41; June 3, 2024, Conner Reed, “Wicked World: Karin Slaughter’s Unflinching Crime Novels Dare to Acknowledge the Dangers Women Face in Everyday Life,” p. 86, and review of This Is Why We Lied, p. 90.
Star-Telegram (Ft. Worth, TX), September 23, 2015, David Martindale, “Author Q&A: ‘Pretty Girls’.”
Washington Post, September 17, 2001, Patrick Anderson, “A Thriller with More to Come,” review of Blindsighted, p. C4.
ONLINE
BookPage, http://www.bookpage.com/ (July 1, 2014), Jay MacDonald, author interview.
Bookreporter, http://www.bookreporter.com/ (May 16, 2008), Norah Piel, reviews of A Faint Cold Fear, Indelible, and Faithless, Joe Hartlaub, review of Beyond Reach; (June 23, 2009), Marge Fletcher, review of Fractured; (June 27, 2014), Joe Hartlaub, review of Cop Town; (October 1, 2015), Joe Hartlaub, review of Pretty Girls.
BookTrib, https://booktrib.com/ (August 24, 2023), Dawn Ius, “Karin Slaughter’s Latest Thriller Shines Spotlight on Violence against Women.”
Bookworm’s World, http://luanne-abookwormsworld.blogspot.com/ (September 14, 2008), review of Fractured.
Creative Loafing Atlanta, http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/ (July 30, 2008), David Lee Simmons, “Karin Slaughter: Femme Fatale—Atlanta Author Makes a Killing in Fractured.”
Crimespree, https://crimespreemag.com/ (August 22, 2023), Erin Mitchell, “Q&A with Karin Slaughter”; (August 9, 2024), Elise Cooper, “Interview with Karin Slaughter.”
Criminal Element, https://www.criminalelement.com/ (August 21, 2024), “The Interrogation Room: A Q&A with Karin Slaughter, author of This Is Why We Lied.”
Curled Up with a Good Book, http://www.curledup.com/ (May 16, 2008), Angela McQuay, review of Beyond Reach.
Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ (September 8, 2014), Jackie K. Cooper, review of Cop Town; (September 27, 2015), Jackie K. Cooper, review of Pretty Girls; (October 22, 2015), Mark Rubinstein, “Pretty Girls: A Conversation with Karin Slaughter.”
Karin Slaughter website, http://www.karinslaughter.com (December 29, 2024).
Memorable TV, http://www.memorabletv.com/ (June 23, 2009), review of Fractured.
Mystery One Bookstore, http://www.mysteryone.com/ (April 30, 2002), author interview.
Shondaland, https://www.shondaland.com/ (August 18, 2023), Sandra Ebejer, “Best-Selling Author Karin Slaughter Talks Her Latest Page-Turning Thriller, After That Night.”
Shots, http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/ (December 16, 2002), Ali Karim, reviews of Kisscut and Blindsighted.
Karin Slaughter is one of the world's most popular and acclaimed storytellers.
She is the author of more than twenty instant New York Times bestselling novels, including the Edgar–nominated Cop Town and standalone novels Pretty Girls, The Good Daughter, and Pieces of Her. She is published in 120 countries with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. Pieces of Her is a #1 Netflix original series starring Toni Collette, and WILL TRENT, based on her Will Trent series, is on ABC (and streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally). False Witness and The Good Daughter are in development for television. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
I wish I knew! The stories form in my mind over a period of time, and before I know it, I’m sitting down at my computer writing. Mostly, it’s a matter of thinking of a crime and wondering how my characters will respond. I’m also interested in seeing how the town will respond. It’s very important to me that Grant County seems like a fourth narrator in the story. There are a lot of recurring characters, so for instance when you see Old Man Burgess in Indelible, you know exactly who he is and you know some of his history. To me, that’s the best thing about reading a series. Those secondary characters really add to the fabric of the story.
What is Your Writing Schedule?
Unfortunately, I’m not very disciplined. I’m more of a “run off into the mountains and write until I collapse” author. I wish I could be more structured, but it’s been working for me so far, so who am I to judge?
How Long Does it Take You to Write a Book?
It depends on what the book is about and how much research is involved. I'd say on average that the whole process takes around ten to twelve months. Sometimes it goes more quickly, sometimes more slowly. I never want to be in a position where I am rushing a story, and thankfully my publishers are very patient.
How do you do your research?
I have the great fortune of being able to ask agents at the GBI, or retired cops, for pointers and tips about solving (and committing!) crimes. A doctor friend of mine has been helping me since Kisscut so that Sara seems like she knows what she’s doing. Mostly, it’s me thinking a lot and trying to figure out a plot and then I call on the experts and say, “I need a cop to search this house and find this clue. How would they get a warrant?” or “I want Sara to stick her hands into a man’s chest and pump his beating heart. Tell me the steps.” I hope very much that the FBI is not monitoring my emails with these folks because we’re probably on a list somewhere.
Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?
International Thriller Writers has a terrific website with loads of good information and resources for aspiring thriller writers. Check it out here: www.write2thrill.org
I wrote you an email, how come I never heard back from you?
I sometimes take awhile to reply to emails, but I do write back to everyone who asks a question. I get a surprising number of bounced emails to my replies, where the mailbox is full or the address is bad. Spam filters can also be at fault sometimes for people not seeing my replies.
If you just wrote to tell me that you love my books, thank you!! I might not have written back to you but please know that I read and appreciate very much hearing that from all of my readers. If you wrote to tell me that you don’t like something I did in one of my books, I may not have written you back depending on how upset you sounded in your email. I respect your right to feel what you feel, and I’m not going to try to talk you out of your feelings.
If you didn’t get a reply to your email, you may also have asked something that I covered in one of these Frequently Asked Questions. I really wish more people would read these questions and answers before sending emails. I love to hear from my readers, but the more time I spend on email, the less time I have to write books!
Can I send you my manuscript so that you can get it published? Or, I sent you my six-thousand page manuscript on unicorns helping heal adult survivors of child sexual abuse. Why haven’t you responded?
Please do not send me manuscripts. My publisher and agent have asked that I not read them and I have to honor their requests. In this day and age, when charges of plagiarism are rampant, I have to protect myself.
Are you related to author Frank Slaughter?
Nope, but I admire his career. He was quite the prolific author. I am, however, related to Enos Slaughter, the baseball hall of famer. He is my grandfather’s brother, but they never got along in life so I never had the chance to meet him. My dad has some great stories, though, and it was really cool that I got to wear his number when I threw out the first pitch at a Yankee’s game.
What authors do you like to read?
I’ve read all of Kate Atkinson’s stuff. I adored Case Histories. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters was one of my all-time favorites. Mo Hayder is fabulous. Peter Robinson, Fidelis Morgan, Mark Billingham, Lee Child, Lynda La Plante … the list could go on. I also read a lot of books outside the thriller genre. I think Kathryn Harrison has written The Great American Novel about three times now. Margaret Atwood and John Irving have enviable careers because they’ve written in so many different styles. I also enjoy Neil Gaiman and Kelley Armstrong. Basically, if it’s a well-written story with solid characters and a real plot, then I’m there.
I signed up for your newsletter but I haven’t gotten it!
Okay, I’m lazy. There haven’t been many newsletters lately, but I swear I’m working on it. Usually, I write them around the time of publication so y’all will go out and get the latest book. Yes, I am a slug, but at least I’m an honest one.
Could you please donate a book/send an autographed photo/make a financial contribution to_____?
Due to the volume of requests I get, I simply can’t honor every request. I think the fairest way to do this is to not consider solicitations for donations through my website.
Karin Slaughter
USA flag (b.1971)
Karin Slaughter is the #1 internationally bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including the Will Trent and Grant County series and the instant New York Times bestselling standalones, Cop Town and Pretty Girls. There are more than 35 million copies of her books in print around the world. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Awards: CWA (2015), Edgar (2013) see all
Genres: Mystery, Thriller
New and upcoming books
June 2025
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We Are All Guilty Here
Series
Grant County
1. Blindsighted (2001)
2. Kisscut (2002)
3. A Faint Cold Fear (2003)
4. Indelible (2004)
5. Faithless (2005)
6. Beyond Reach (2007)
7. Undone (2009)
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Will Trent
1. Triptych (2006)
2. Fractured (2008)
3. Undone (2009)
4. Broken (2010)
5. Fallen (2011)
5.5. Snatched (2012)
6. Criminal (2012)
6.5. Busted (2013)
7. Unseen (2013)
8. The Kept Woman (2016)
8.5. Cleaning the Gold (2019) (with Lee Child)
9. The Last Widow (2019)
10. The Silent Wife (2020)
11. After That Night (2023)
12. This is Why We Lied (2024)
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Charlie Quinn
0.5. Last Breath (2017)
1. The Good Daughter (2017)
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Andrea Oliver
1. Pieces of Her (2018)
2. Girl, Forgotten (2022)
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Jack Reacher (with Lee Child)
23.6. Cleaning the Gold (2019)
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Novels
Cop Town (2014)
Pretty Girls (2015)
False Witness (2021)
We Are All Guilty Here (2025)
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Collections
The Unremarkable Heart and Other Stories (2012)
Necessary Women / The Mean Time (2013)
Three Twisted Stories (2015)
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Novellas and Short Stories
Martin Misunderstood (2008)
The Unremarkable Heart (2011)
The Blessing of Brokenness (2012)
Cold Cold Heart (2013)
Go Deep (2015)
Remmy Rothstein Toes the Line (2015)
Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes (2015)
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Anthologies edited
Like a Charm (2004)
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Series contributed to
MatchUp Collection
Short Story (2018) (with Michael Koryta)
Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular storytellers. She is the author of more than twenty instant New York Times bestselling novels, including the Edgar-nominated Cop Town and standalone novels The Good Daughter and Pretty Girls. An international bestseller, Slaughter is published in 120 countries with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. Pieces of Her is a #1 Netflix original series, Will Trent is now a Disney+ television series, and further projects are in development. Karin Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta.
Best-Selling Author Karin Slaughter Talks Her Latest Page-Turning Thriller, ‘After That Night’
The novelist opens up about her passion for writing, her love for libraries, and why she’ll never tire of writing her popular Will Trent series.
By Sandra EbejerPublished: Aug 18, 2023
Every item on this page was chosen by a Shondaland editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.
Since 2001, Karin Slaughter has written at least one crime fiction novel a year, making her one of the most prolific and widely read authors working today. That said, she wants readers to know that in real life, she’s not all doom and gloom. “Thriller writers are pretty laid-back,” she tells Shondaland. “It’s the romance writers who will cut a bitch.”
Her latest novel, After That Night, which comes out August 22, is the 11th book in the enormously popular Will Trent series, which has been adapted into a hit multiplatform show, airing on both ABC and Hulu. A gripping page-turner, After That Night follows Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent Will Trent, his partner Faith Mitchell, and medical examiner Sara Linton as they attempt to solve a series of assaults on local women — assaults that may be connected to a violent attack Sara experienced 15 years ago.
In addition to her writing, Slaughter is the founder of Save the Libraries, a nonprofit organization that exists to support libraries and library programming worldwide. All of her work, she says, ties back to one thing: her love of the written word. “I feel really passionate about writing,” she says. “I love it. I’m still interested in doing new things. I never want to write the same book over and over again. I want to find a new way into the story each time. My process is just to immerse myself in it and to become the story 24 hours a day.”
Slaughter recently spoke with Shondaland about her writing process, researching medical terminology, and the physical repercussions of carrying characters around 24-7.
SANDRA EBEJER: Like many of your books, After That Night includes a lot of medical jargon. What research do you do to make sure that information is correct?
KARIN SLAUGHTER: I’ve had a medical doctor who’s advised me from the second book. He’s wonderful because he’s married to a pediatrician, and his brother works at a body farm, so he’s the best resource possible. The thing I always say — because I know there are people who will read this who want to be or are authors — is that you have to find the right kind of person [for advice]. Because you can get the world-class expert in something, but if they can’t articulate it in a way that you understand, then it’s not going to work. The great thing about this guy, David Harper, is I’ll say, “Well, what if I want this to happen?” And he’ll say, “That probably wouldn’t happen. But if it did, this is what you would [do].” I think it’s very important to be as precise in the details as possible but also keep in mind it’s fiction. I have to keep it moving, and I have to take some shortcuts. He gets that too.
SE: Have you ever had something you wanted to do in your book, and he says, “No, that’s not going to work”? And if so, do you have to completely rethink where you’re going with the story?
KS: Sometimes. It’s more like, “Let’s do something adjacent to that.” When we’re talking, I can come up with something else that’s even more interesting to me. Because that’s the thing — you have to be really interested in it. I mean, I spend a year working on these books, so it’s got to be something I feel drawn to and passionate about.
london, england march 12 karin slaughter, best selling american crime writer, at the london book fair 2019, at olympia london on march 12, 2019 in london, england photo by david levensongetty images
David Levenson//Getty Images
Karin Slaughter at the London Book Fair 2019 at Olympia London.
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SE: You’ve been writing about Will, Sara, and Faith for years. What keeps you coming back and wanting to write more stories with these characters?
KS: Sometimes I do stand-alone [books] to take a break because I’m not ready to write about them. But the thing I made clear when I started writing my first book a zillion years ago was I wanted the characters to evolve and grow based on what happens in the stories. The Sara you meet in Blindsighted [from 2001] and the one you meet in After That Night has grown. She’s changed. She’s very black-and-white in that first book and “This is right; this is wrong.” In this book, she’s like, “Sometimes you do the wrong things for the right reasons.” I love that they can change, and I can find new shades of them to write about. In particular with Sara, I think this is a side of her that, one, she wouldn’t have without her relationship with Will. That’s one thing I love writing about — how relationships, good and bad, can change you. And two, it’s a part of her that was there all along that I get to talk more about. Because I [write] in the first book that her life was completely changed by sexual assault, and this seemed like the right time to write about that.
SE: Is it difficult to balance the information so that you keep longtime fans and readers engaged, as well as people who’ve never read a Will Trent novel before?
KS: Absolutely. I write for both those readers. Hopefully, it works. That’s the thing about being at this stage of my career — I know that if I can’t fit something in one book, I can fit it in another. And I know I can trust my readers. I don’t have to give them every single bit of information about these characters because you can go back and read the previous books if you want to know more about them. I have to find a way to reward longtime readers with some new things but also keep first-time readers engaged. The real balancing act of writing a series for so long is figuring out new and exciting things to say.
SE: There are a lot of characters in this book. There are a series of chat room conversations that particularly stand out because you don’t know which character is which — they’re identified by numbers rather than names.
KS: For the chats, I had to really make those distinctive voices. So even if you couldn’t remember who the number was, you knew that voice. It was also important to make it feel realistic. A lot of the s--tty things people say in this book comes from stuff that I’ve heard said to me. I mean, any woman who’s lived in the world has had this stuff directed toward them, so the interesting part for me as a writer was how do I write these voices in a believable way where it doesn’t feel over the top? Because the thing is, truth is stranger than fiction. As women on the internet, we’re constantly harassed. At a certain point, if you put that in a book, it would be almost unbelievable, in a weird way. We’re all anesthetized to it. So, I had to be really careful about how I used those passages and what they were saying, and try to make it feel a little subtle but also realistic. That was quite a tightrope to have to walk.
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SE: Are you a plotter? Do you plot out every moment of your book? Or are you more of a pantser who works without an outline?
KS: I’m a plotter and a pantser. Before I start a book, I think about it a lot, and I get some idea of the story. Then I sit down with my editor, and we talk it through. And she’s like, “Okay, this sounds good” or “Well, you’ve killed everybody in the first chapter.” And I’ll be like, “Oh, maybe I should kill someone in the fifth chapter.” That kind of thing. We don’t outline. It’s more like this happens, this happens, this happens. And that’s a good scaffolding for me to follow. The pantser part comes when I’m filling in the pieces between the scaffolding, figuring out the twists and turns, and how do I get from A to B.
SE: Do you write your whole book and then decide, “I need to put the research in”? Or do you stop halfway and think, “I’ve got to talk to my friend about whether this piece works or not”?
KS: I stop. The first word I write is the first word you read. The last word I write is the last word you read. I do it chronologically. It’s always been my process. I can get that little piece of research and be like, “This needs to go in a different direction” or “This is not as [fast-paced] as I thought it would be, so I need to pick up that slack somewhere else.” It all just works together. And then there’s the emotional component. A lot of the crimes I’m writing about, in this [book] in particular, there’s a real emotional component. It’s like a roller coaster. The track is the plot, and the roller-coaster car is the emotion, and they all have to go together in order for the book to hold.
SE: You make a lot of comments in this book about violence against women and how the justice system doesn’t always work in women’s favor. When you’re writing, are you intentionally trying to get a message across?
KS: I’m really not. I’ve always felt like I write how I speak, which could be to my detriment, but I’m just writing what I see. I never sit down and say, “This is the message I want to write about.” It’s just like, this is life. This is what’s going on. This is how the characters react to it. This is how it changes their lives. I was just in the Netherlands touring with this book, and an interviewer, an older man, was like, “One might read this book and think you hate men.” And it’s like, “Well, I hate rapists.” [Laughs.]
Men who read my books understand this is a woman’s experience. That’s really what I want to write about — this is what it’s like to be a woman in the world. It’s like, “I got flashed on the way to work today. Okay, well, what do you want in your coffee?” It’s something that’s part of the world we live in. Many years ago, my father and I were talking about violence against women, and he said, “You would never have that happen to you.” And I’m like, “Sir, please sit down. Let me tell you all the things that have happened to me, from the age of 8, when I was on a bus trip with my girls’ school class and a man flashed us and started masturbating.” Eight years old. And he was shocked. I think the reason he was shocked is women just don’t talk about it, because it just happens.
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That’s what I wanted to write about — this is what happens, and sometimes, because it happens so often and it’s so prevalent, some women take the attitude of “Well, she shouldn’t have done that. She shouldn’t have been there. She shouldn’t have; she shouldn’t have.” And it’s like, bitch, you don’t know. There are 70-year-old women who get raped in their housedress; there are 10-year-old girls — there’s nothing you can do. Instead of “Why did she do this?” why aren’t you saying, “Why don’t men stop raping?” Everybody says, “She could be my sister; she could be my mother.” Well, he could be your father. He could be your brother, he could be your boyfriend, he could be your husband. We need to stop making it out like it’s an other. Because it is an actual guy who is doing this.
SE: Parts of this book are pretty heavy. Are you one of those writers who works a set number of hours each day and then logs off? Or do you carry these characters with you as you’re out and about?
KS: I always carry [them], particularly Sara. I’ve carried her with me for more time than I care to admit. I am always thinking about them; I’m always thinking about story. When I’m writing, it’s very intense. I have a cabin in the North Georgia mountains where I go to write. My dad built it for me years ago. I go up there and isolate myself. I mean, I have a TV; I won’t live like an animal. But it’s all about the story. It’s just me and my laptop. And it can be a four-hour day and lots of naps, or it can be a 16-hour day, and I can’t sleep at night.
After That Night: A Will Trent Thriller (Will Trent, 11)
After That Night: A Will Trent Thriller (Will Trent, 11)
Now 84% Off
$5 at Amazon
SE: That sounds grueling. Do you take a long break when you’re done?
KS: It is so exhausting [laughs]. I crash, and I usually get sick. Even though I’ve been alone, I usually get a bad cold or something. It’s weird. My body’s just like, “No more. You can’t do this.”
SE: Switching gears a bit, can you talk about how Save the Libraries came about and what you’ve accomplished so far?
KS: I’m really proud. We’ve given away about half a million dollars so far, and not just to American libraries but overseas as well. It came about in ’08. That financial downturn was really devastating for libraries. Politicians in their wisdom were like, “We should just close libraries,” when they’re needed the most, particularly for children. I mean, I don’t like children a lot, but they do need to go places. And if they read, they’ll do better in school. If they do better in school, they get better jobs; they pay higher taxes. It’s a really easy investment in our future.
As a child, it was my haven to be at the library. I loved sitting in the stacks every Saturday. My dad let me read any book I wanted. It was the gift of my life to be able to have access to reading. It taught me so much about the world. So, that’s why I started looking at: How can I give back? Let’s do some fundraisers, let’s get some money rolling in, and let’s not have strings attached to how this money is spent. If you need to fix the toilet, fix the toilet. During the Ferguson [Missouri] turmoil, the library stayed open. The schools were closed. We gave money to help them keep the [library] doors open so kids had a place to go in a very turbulent time. One thing kids really want is continuity, and to be able to go to the library every day when they couldn’t go to school was very calming. I think it helped them in a lot of ways. That’s why I think it’s important to keep investing in libraries.
SE: What advice would you give to an aspiring novelist?
KS: Write. That’s the hard part. Every single person on Earth probably has at least one good idea for a book. But that is not the hard part. It’s sitting down and expressing it through character and plot and moving it forward. That is what makes you a writer. Anyone can say, “I write,” but what makes you a writer is sitting your butt in the chair and doing the work.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Sandra Ebejer is a New York-based writer who has contributed to The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Greatist, Flood Magazine, and The Girlfriend from AARP. Find her on Twitter @sebejer.
Karin Slaughter’s Latest Thriller Shines Spotlight on Violence Against Women
Contributor: Dawn Ius
Dawn Ius
August 24, 2023
5 min read
Karin Slaughter fans always know what they’re in for— gritty, propulsive, unflinching, and perhaps most notably, unabashedly topical thrillers, no matter how controversial or harrowing.
With her latest — the 11th in her bestselling Will Trent series and her 23rd overall — Slaughter continues her trend of not pulling any punches, this time focusing on acts of violence against women. It’s an issue close to her heart.
“I feel like telling honest stories of violence against women helps shine a light on what’s really going on, sometimes not even behind closed doors,” she says, in an interview with BookTrib. “For so long, polite society decided that we were willing to put up with a certain level of violence against women because we told ourselves that bad things only happen to bad women: Why was she drinking? What was she wearing? Why was she in that part of town?”
It’s a mindset Slaughter hopes to challenge in her fiction — and she does so brilliantly in After That Night (William Morrow). The story begins with Dr. Sara Linton and Special Agent Will Trenton happily engaged — but things turn scary when Sara is called into the ER to help save a young woman who has been brutally attacked in a way that bears striking resemblance to her own assault 15 years prior. The ensuing investigation leads Sara and Will down a dangerous path of betrayals and, well, murder, of course.
After That Night is grueling and compassionate, thorough and fast-paced. It’s everything you want in a thriller — with the authenticity society needs. On the week of her release, Slaughter took a few minutes out of her busy tour schedule to answer a few questions.
You are both frank and mindful in your writing of sexual assault and violence against women. Why is this balance important to you?
No one hears about a robbery and asks what the victim was doing in that part of town. The cops never say to the family of a murder victim, “Hey, this investigation is going to be difficult. Are you sure you want us to do it?” Rape, assault, harassment and coercion are traumatic, life-altering, soul-shattering crimes. We need to openly talk about them and discuss the psychic toll they take on not just women, but husbands, fathers, sons, and communities, because the only people who are protected by our silence or worse, apathy, are the perpetrators.
Throughout the novel there is substantial commentary woven in about violence against women, especially in light of the fact that the justice system doesn’t always work in women’s favor. Do you write with a message in mind?
There’s always a delicate balance between writing about social issues and keeping up the driving pace of a thriller. I am at my core a thriller author, and I never want to slow down or interfere with the rhythm of a story to climb onto a soap box. Any issues I grapple with will be in the context of a (hopefully) great story.
While many of your characters are well-liked, some — such as Britt in this book — may not be quite as easily embraced. And yet, we root for her. How do you make a “mean girl” sympathetic?
I see the villains as real people. I’m not a believer in “evil” as a Biblical concept. People do bad things for very clear reasons. There’s generally a psychopathy involved with more brutal crimes, but then you have contributing factors such as child abuse, neglect, brain damage, etc. If we say someone did something bad because they’re simply evil, that sort of lets them — and society as a whole — off the hook. We know there are certain elements that foster violence and it’s easier to throw up our hands as if it’s completely beyond our control than to acknowledge that through lack of funding, lack of health care, lack of empathy, lack of decency and understanding, we are letting certain things fester and crossing our fingers every time it happens that it will never happen again.
As with many of your books, After That Night includes plenty of medical jargon — and I know you don’t moonlight as a doctor. What’s the trick to the authenticity you bring to your stories?
I have a not-so-secret doctor, David Harper, who is an amazing person (and friend) who patiently answers all of my crazy questions. In his career, David has done a bit of everything from emergency medicine to teaching to life flights to — you name it. I think I’m his favorite student because I can’t kill any real-life patients. I’m constantly throwing out impossible problems for him to solve. The thing that makes him so invaluable is that he gets that I’m writing fiction. So, he might send me ten pages of explanations and drawings and photos of a procedure, but then I have to condense it into a few paragraphs so that it works. He understands that I’ve got to keep the story moving, but also that I need to understand the rules before I can break them.
About Karin Slaughter:
She is the author of more than 20 instant New York Times bestselling novels, including the Edgar–nominated Cop Town and standalone novels Pretty Girls, The Good Daughter, and Pieces of Her. She is published in 120 countries with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. Pieces of Her is a #1 Netflix original series starring Toni Collette, and WILL TRENT, based on her Will Trent series, is on ABC (and streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally). False Witness and The Good Daughter are in development for television. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta. (Photo Credit: Alison Rosa)
The Interrogation Room: A Q&A with Karin Slaughter, author of This Is Why We Lied
By Crime HQ
August 21, 2024
We had the opportunity to interview Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Girls and After That Night, and most recently of This Is Why We Lied, the new thrilling suspense featuring Will Trent and Sara Linton. Watch our full interview for Karin's thoughts on writing about the outdoors, alternative histories, and more!
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About This Is Why We Lied by Karin Slaughter:
For GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton, McAlpine Lodge seems like the ideal getaway to celebrate their honeymoon. Set on a gorgeous, off-the-grid mountaintop property, it’s the perfect place to unplug and reconnect. Until a bone-chilling scream cuts through the night.
A murderer in their midst…
Mercy McAlpine, the manager of the Lodge, is dead. With a vicious storm raging and the one access road to the property washed out, the murderer must be someone on the mountain. But as Will and Sara investigate the McAlpine family and the other guests, they realize that everyone here is lying….Lying about their past. Lying to their family. Lying to themselves.
Who killed Mercy McAlpine?
It soon becomes clear that normal rules don’t apply at McAlpine Lodge, and Will and Sara are going to have to watch their step at every turn. Trapped on the resort, they must untangle a decades-old web of secrets to discover what happened to Mercy. And with the killer poised to strike again, the trip of a lifetime becomes a race against the clock…
Q&A with Karin Slaughter
by Erin Mitchell | Aug 22, 2023 | Author Interviews, Features
AFTER THAT NIGHT marks the return of some of Karin Slaughter’s most beloved characters, including Will Trent, Sara Linton, and Faith Mitchell. Karin was kind enough to answer some questions for us about this book and more!
This is a Will Trent book, but Sara Linton takes center stage. Was there something in particular that prompted you to put Sara in the spotlight?
Karin: I tend to think of stories in context of characters and how they will personally respond to the bad thing that’s happening. In the past, I’ve started books with Faith or Amanda, and this one felt solidly in Sara territory. The opening gave me the opportunity to talk about her from a different perspective, and I think it offers long-time readers a new side of her that they’ll find interesting.
There are certain locations in the book that play a pivotal role in the story. We know that Grady Hospital is very real, but are the other key locations (bars, tennis clubs, etc.) based on real places in Atlanta?
Karin: I loosely based some of the locations on real life places, but it’s more of an amalgamation. We’ve got some storied country clubs in the Atlanta area, and I’ve been invited to a few of them, so what Will sees when he’s standing in the lobby reflects some of my impressions. Other locations are more a vibe for that part of the city. To any Atlantan, if I say “a bar in Buckhead” they will automatically conjure a certain type of person with a certain type of drink. One of the fun things about living in a city that has such vibrant, disparate sections is that there are lots of fun places to write about.
AFTER THAT NIGHT explores the complex relationships between women from multiple perspectives and with a clarity and honesty rarely seen in fiction (or nonfiction, for that matter). Do you think crime fiction is particularly suited to this aspect of your storytelling?
Karin: I think crime fiction is the best place to tell women’s stories, particularly because a lot of the crimes that happen in our genre have women as victims. I find it refreshing as a reader to find like-minded voices. I also think it’s important in my work to write as realistically as possible. I suppose that’s where honesty comes into play. I want to write characters who speak like real people, and the conversations in the book reflect my own experiences.
So many of us longtime-reader fans were nervous about the WILL TRENT TV series, and then thrilled because it’s really good. Did the series being in production (I’m assuming it was while you were writing AFTER THAT NIGHT) affect your writing process at all?
Karin: One of the great gifts of this experience is that the show is the show and the books are the books. While I think Ramon Rodriguez is doing a terrific job as Will, and he absolutely captures the heart of Will’s character, it’s a gift to me that he doesn’t physically resemble the Will in the books. That’s gone such a long way toward helping me keep my characters in my head when I’m writing. I love everything the showrunners and writers are doing with the series because they really get who the characters are and what I’ve been trying to do with them. That being said, people should understand that it’s an interpretation of my work. If what you go into it with that understanding, I think you’ll love it. And also, there’s Betty, who is perfect in every way.
The accuracy with while you describe medical stuff in your books is stunning. (I’ve told more people than I can count that you are the only author who gets T1 diabetes right.) Do you have a secret medical degree?
Karin: I have a not-so-secret doctor, David Harper, who is an amazing person (and friend) who patiently answers all of my crazy questions. In his career, David has done a bit of everything from emergency medicine to teaching to life flights to—you name it. I think I’m his favorite student because I can’t kill any real-life patients. I’m constantly throwing out impossible problems for him to solve. The thing that makes him so invaluable is that he gets that I’m writing fiction. So, he might send me ten pages of explanations and drawings and photos of a procedure, but then I have to condense it into a few paragraphs so that it works. He understands that I’ve got to keep the story moving, but also that I need to understand the rules before I can break them.
INTERVIEW WITH KARIN SLAUGHTER
by Elise Cooper | Aug 9, 2024 | Author Interviews, Books, Features
This is Why We Lied
Will Trent Book 12
Karin Slaughter
William Morrow Pub
August 20th, 2024
This is Why We Lied by Karin Slaughter is a book that has all the trademarks including twists, and intensity. A word of warning there is child abuse, domestic violence, brutal treatment of women, incest, substance abuse, and rape as part of the story, but it is done in a very empathetic way for the victims.
The plot has GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton, going to McAlpine Lodge to celebrate their honeymoon. Set on a gorgeous, off-the-grid mountaintop property, it’s the perfect place to unplug and reconnect. Until a bone-chilling scream cuts through the night. They investigate and find out that Mercy McAlpine, the manager of the Lodge, is dead. With a vicious storm raging and the one access road to the property washed out, the murderer must be someone on the mountain. But as Will and Sara investigate the McAlpine family and the other guests, they realize that everyone here is lying.
Every member of this family is despicable. They are cold, unfeeling, manipulative, abusive, and controlling. There are suspects galore because almost everyone in the story, not just the family, has some sort of motive to kill Mercy.
The story unfolds through the dual points of view from Will and Sara. Mercy’s point of view and backstory are revealed in the letter entries written to her son over the years that chronicle her mental and physical abuse as well as the resentment festering within her toxic family.
This is a great crime procedural. As Faith, Will’s police partner, says about the crime, “an Agatha Christie locked-room mystery with a VC Andrews twist.”
Elise Cooper: How is the TV series coming along?
Karin Slaughter: It is going great. It is starting up on the third season. I read the first script, and it is fantastic. I think they are doing a terrific job. I think they captured the spirit of the characters and Ramon, who plays Will Trent, is incredibly sexy and really has the heart of Will. This is what matters. I think of this as a separate thing where the books are the books, and the show is the show. I keep to the books as I tell stories based on the characters I created, and they tell stories based on the interpretation of the characters.
EC: How did you get the idea for the story?
KS: It was a locked lodge mystery. I go up to my cabin in the North Georgia mountains when I write my books. I want to lean into it to write about the woods and the mountains. Of course, I must bring in a murder and not have people just being happy.
EC: Did you take any of your characters out of their comfort zone?
KS: Sara is comfortable in the woods, while Faith hates it. Sara and Will see nature as beautiful and amazing. Faith complains about there being too many birds, the heat, not to mention how many mosquitoes. She is not an outdoor person by any stretch.
EC: What role did Will and Sara’s honeymoon play in the story?
KS: I think it was my way of moving the relationship forward without having to write a wedding scene. I was able to show the difference for them between dating, living together, and being married, having it formalized. Sara previously has been in a bad marriage and a good marriage, to the same guy. Sara wants to make sure she is supportive, but also very clear about her needs. Sara has learned as she got older to listen and compromise.
EC: Can you talk about this dysfunctional family? How would you describe Mercy?
KS: She is complicated. Women like her tend to be presented in black and white. She needed to get away from her family, protect her son, break the cycle of abuse, and get away from her lover, Dave. As readers find out more about her, they will realize she has no money, no friends, no place to live, no driver’s license, and no car. Questions to explore: if in that situation could someone walk away and take their child with them? For Mercy the answer is no. Dave has always pulled her back each time. For her, it is easier to just give in and stick with the devil she knows. She is really cut off from the world. She makes bad decisions for herself.
EC: Did you base her abuse on reality?
KS: Yes, considering that is how someone in an abusive relationship lives with no one to turn to, no one to help them, and in complete isolation.
EC: How would you describe Dave?
KS: He has a similar background to Will but is a miserable, horrible turd, while Will is on his honeymoon, and this is the happiest time in his life. Dave is a drifter, abusive, and an alcoholic addict. Amanda, Will’s boss best sums it up, Dave is addicted to being broken.
EC: What is the theme of the book?
KS: It is about safety. Mercy never felt safe. Sara felt safe because of her family and Will. The realization for Will is that he can trust Amanda, Faith, and Sara. He has a support system he never had as a child.
EC: Is Mercy the likable character and Dave the dislikable character?
KS: I do not think it is that easy. If you met Dave in real life someone would think he is fun, interesting, and charming, while people would not particularly warm to Mercy. Like people I have known, in her core Mercy is trying but she cannot get out of her own way.
EC: What role did Mercy’s letters to her son Jon play?
KS: They are important. They give readers some clues to figure out who done it. They also show how she felt invincible in her own life. She does not feel anyone is looking out for her. She is very aware that her job is to protect him and not the other way around.
EC: What do you want to say about Jon?
KS: Mercy tried to separate him from the toxicity of their family. She has diluted herself that Dave never hit him and was never awful to him. Like a lot of women, she does not understand their children watched what was happening, when their mother was being abused by their father. In Jon’s world it was acceptable, and the abuse was normalized.
EC: What about Cecil, Mercy’s dad?
KS: He is just an angry old man. He has lost his sense of who he is. From a physical level he lost some of his mobility. I think he knows he is an asshole and wants his way. Mercy speaks about him being two different people where guests see him as laid back, outdoorsy guy, but he is a miserable person. He knows how to be nice and accommodating with strangers but does not do it with his own family. He was a bully and cruel, a choice he made.
EC: What about Bitty, Mercy’s mom?
KS: She is a lousy mother and grandmother. She is the worst kind of liar because she gaslights both her children, saying ‘listen to your father and do not talk to him that way,’ even though he deserves to be talked to that way. Her silence is just as damaging than showing anger. She was never on her children’s side. She was psychologically abusive and cruel.
EC: Would you say that Christopher, Mercy’s brother is a schlump?
KS: Yes. He is just a weak-willed person who never stands up for her. He does the easiest thing. He allows her to be on her own. He never confronts anybody. He likes to fish, because it is solitary and quiet.
EC: How did you come up with the way you did the interviews with the suspects?
KS: I showed the different aspects of how they can approach an interview. They can be defensive, combative, disinterested, or helpful. This is policing 101. I did want to show these different sides. The title of the book becomes so appropriate because everybody is lying. Some lie because they want to be helpful and exaggerate. But exaggeration is a lie. Some are hiding something that has nothing to do with the crime. Some are lying because they know about the crime and are complicit.
EC: Do you canoe because you wrote a whole scene about it?
KS: Yes, I do and kayaking. I prefer kayaking because it is a good workout and can take people to the most beautiful places.
EC: Next books?
KS: It will be a stand-alone crime novel, and my 25th book, out next year. No title. After that I will do another book with the whole gang surrounding Will Trent.
THANK YOU!!
Karin Slaughter
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karin Slaughter
Slaughter in 2012
Slaughter in 2012
Born January 6, 1971 (age 53)
Georgia, U.S.
Occupation Writer
Genre Crime Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Years active 2001–present
Karin Slaughter (born January 6, 1971) is an American crime writer. She has written 24 novels, which have sold more than 40 million copies and have been published in 120 countries.[1][2][3] Her first novel, Blindsighted (2001), was published in 27 languages[4] and made the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger Award shortlist for "Best Thriller Debut" of 2001.[5]
Slaughter won the 2015 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award for her novel Cop Town.[6]
Her 2018 novel, Pieces of Her,[7] was adapted into an eight-episode television series of the same name, released in March 2022 on Netflix.
Early life
Slaughter was born in Covington, Georgia and grew up in Lake Spivey. She has two older sisters. She attended Morrow High School in Ellenwood, Georgia. She then studied literature at Georgia State University, but dropped out prior to graduating. She wrote her first novel Blindsighted in three months.[8]
Philanthropy
Slaughter is a library advocate and founded Save the Libraries, a non-profit organization that campaigns to support US public libraries.[9] The Save the Libraries fund has provided more than $300,000 to the DeKalb County Public Library in Atlanta, Georgia.[10]
Publishing history
Characters from Slaughter's two main series, Grant County and Will Trent (Atlanta), were brought together in her novels Undone (2009), titled Genesis internationally, and Broken (2010). In these novels, Sara Linton and Will Trent work cases set in Grant County and Atlanta, respectively.
Grant County series (2001 to 2007)
Slaughter is best known for her Grant County series:
Blindsighted, 2001
Kisscut, 2002
A Faint Cold Fear, 2003
Indelible, 2004
Faithless, 2005
Beyond Reach/Skin Privilege, 2007
Set in the fictional town of Heartsdale, Georgia (in the fictional Grant County), the narrative takes place from the perspective of three main characters: Sara Linton, the town's pediatrician and part-time coroner; Jeffrey Tolliver, Linton's husband and the chief of police; and his subordinate, detective Lena Adams.
Will Trent (Atlanta) series
The Will Trent series, which takes place in Atlanta, Georgia, features Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent Will Trent and his partner Faith Mitchell. So far, Trent has appeared in Triptych, Fractured, Undone, Broken, Fallen, Criminal, Unseen, The Kept Woman, The Last Widow, The Silent Wife, After That Night, and This is Why We Lied, as well as the novellas Snatched, Busted, and Cleaning the Gold.
ABC ordered a pilot episode starring Ramón Rodríguez as Trent and Erika Christensen as Angie, his girlfriend.[11] The series premiered on January 3, 2023,[12] and ABC has renewed the series for a third season.[13]
Other works
“Like a Charm” is a short story anthology featuring several thriller authors, including Lee Child, Peter Robinson (novelist), John Connolly (author), and Laura Lippman.[14] Each story is linked by a charm bracelet that brings bad luck to its owners. The setting and time periods of each story vary greatly, ranging from 19th-century Georgia to wartime Leeds. Karin Slaughter wrote the first and last stories.
Martin Misunderstood is an original audio novella narrated by Wayne Knight.[15] Both the story and the narration were nominated for an Audie Award in 2009.[16]
The Unremarkable Heart won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story in 2013.[17]
Her book Pieces of Her reached number 2 on the New York Times Bestseller list, the week it was released in late August 2018.[18] Pieces of Her was published through HarperCollins and follows a young woman who learns about a hidden side of her mother, Laura.[19] It is in the vein of a psychological thriller[20] and was given a positive review by Publishers Weekly[21] and Kirkus Reviews.[22] Her other standalone novels—Cop Town, Pretty Girls, The Good Daughter, and False Witness—have all been New York Times bestsellers.
In February 2019, it was announced that Netflix will be developing an 8-episode television series starring Toni Collette, based on the Pieces of Her novel.[23][24][25]
Personal life
Slaughter was a contestant on an installment of ABC's Holey Moley which originally aired on June 4, 2020.[26]
Bibliography
Slaughter at BookExpo America in 2019
The Grant County series
Blindsighted (2001)
Kisscut (2002)
A Faint Cold Fear (2003)
Indelible (2004)
Faithless, (2005)
Beyond Reach (2007), Skin Privilege (UK title)
The Will Trent series
Triptych (2006)
Fractured (2008)
Undone (2009), Genesis (UK/Australia title)
Broken (2010)
Fallen (2011)
Snatched (2012, ebook novella)
Criminal (2012)
Busted (2013, ebook novella)
Unseen (2013)
The Kept Woman (2016)[27]
Cleaning the Gold (2019 novella, co-written with Lee Child)
The Last Widow (2019)
The Silent Wife (2020)[28]
After That Night (August 2023)
This is Why We Lied (August 2024)
Other books
Like A Charm (2004; editor)
Martin Misunderstood (2008)
Thorn in My Side (2011; ebook novella)
Cop Town (2014)
Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes (2015) (novella) (prequel to Pretty Girls)
Pretty Girls (2015)
Last Breath (2017) (novella) (prequel to The Good Daughter)
The Good Daughter (2017)
Pieces of Her (2018)
False Witness (2021)
Girl, Forgotten (2022)
Awards
Slaughter has won or been nominated for many awards.
In reverse chronological order, they are:
2020, Ned Kelly Award[29]
2019, Georgia Author of the Year[30]
2019, International Thriller Writers Awards Finalist[31]
2017, The Skimm Book Club[32]
2017, Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, Suspense[33]
2017, AudioFile Best Book of the Year (AudioFile Earphones Award)[34]
2017, Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award Longlist[35]
2016, International Thriller Writers Awards Finalist[36]
2016, People’s Choice Award Winner[37]
2015, Edgar Nomination, Best Novel, Cop Town[38]
2015, American Association of People with Disabilities Image Award[39]
2015, Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, Winner, Cop Town[40]
2014, Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award[41]
2014, AudioFile Magazine Earphones Award Winner, Cop Town, 2013[42]
2014, Crime Zone, The Silver Fingerprint Winner, Best Foreign Thriller, Unseen[43]
2014, Anthony Bouchercon Nomination, Best Short Story, The Unremarkable Heart[44]
2014, Edgar Award Winner, Best Short Story[45]
2013, Mystery Readers International Macavity award nomination, Best Short Story, The Unremarkable Heart[46]
2011, Crime Zone, The Silver Fingerprint Winner, Best Foreign Thriller, Fallen[47]
2011, International Thriller Writers Silver Bullet Award Winner[48]
2010, Suspense Magazine Best of 2010 Winner, Thriller/Suspense, Broken[49]
2009, Le Livre de Poche Prix Lecteurs Winner, Faithless[50]
2009, Crime Zone the Silver Fingerprint Winner, Best Foreign Thriller, Fractured[51]
2009, Audio Publishers association Audie Nomination, Humor, Martin Misunderstood[52]
2009, Left Coast Crime Hawaii Five-0 Nomination, Best Law Enforcement/Police Procedural, Fractured[53]
2008, ITV Crime Thriller International Author of the Year Nomination, Best Fiction, Beyond Reach[54]
2008, Georgia Author of the Year Nomination, Best Fiction, Beyond Reach[55]
2007, Crime Zone the Silver Fingerprint Winner, Best Foreign Thriller, Beyond Reach[56]
2007, Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger nomination, Best Thriller, Triptych[57]
2003, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards Winner, Best Contemporary Mystery, A Faint Cold[58]
2002, Mystery Readers International Macavity Award Nomination, Best First Mystery, Blindsighted[59]
2002, International Thriller Writers Barry Award Nomination, Best First Novel, Blindsighted[60]
2001, Crime Writers' Association Dagger Award Nomination, Best Thriller Debut, Blindsighted[61]
The crime writer Karin Slaughter has been plugging away at a new novel from her secluded cabin in Blue Ridge, Ga., and recently, the distant revving of a chain saw has disturbed her peace. "I have no idea where it's coming from," Slaughter says via Zoom from the cabin's book-filled den. "I hope it's a serial killer."
She looks over her shoulder toward the noise. When she turns back, white hair piled high, she looks completely unfazed.
Perhaps it's because Slaughter (yes, that's her real last name; yes, she's grown tired of jokes about it) has built a career imagining such worst-case scenarios. There are no chain saws in This Is Why We Lied (Morrow, Aug.), the 12th entry in her popular series featuring Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent, but the book's bloodshed takes place in a setting just as sequestered as Slaughter's cabin.
The novel opens with Will and his wife, medical examiner Sara Linton, preparing for their honeymoon at the luxe McAlpine Lodge in remote northwest Georgia. After Will and Sara hike to the facilities, making small talk with other couples, they sit down for a dinner hosted by the McAlpine family, who run the lodge. Soon, an explosive argument between 30-some-thing Mercy; her teenage son, Jon; and her ice-cold parents halts the banquet. By the end of the night, Mercy has been stabbed and left for dead near one of the property's cabins.
"I wanted to create this idea that it's going to be one of these comfortable, Christie-like locked-room sort of things, and then spin it on its head," Slaughter says of the novel's And Then There Were None-style setup. "Because I doubt Agatha Christie would ever write about the things I write about."
To call that an understatement would itself be an understatement. Addiction, abuse, and gory medical detail all factor heavily into This Is Why We Lied--well-trod territory for Slaughter. Across 23 years and as many novels, she's developed a reputation for both quality and brutality, pulling few punches in her depictions of the often-gendered violence that animates her narratives. "I get a lot of tips from cops and prosecutors about cases I might want to look into and details I might want to incorporate into my writing," Slaughter says. "But ingeneral, by being a woman in the world, I'm familiar with the different types of aggression women and girls deal with on a daily basis."
The main suspect in This Is Why We Lied is Mercy's slimy ex-husband, Dave, whose beatings sent Mercy to the hospital during and after their volatile marriage. Though Mercy is dead by the end of the novel's first quarter, her spirit haunts the action, with letters in which she catalogs Dave's abuse punctuating several chapters. By the end, Mercy emerges as one of Slaughter's most memorable creations: a wounded and complicated former fuckup who's put herself on the straight and narrow, only to be pulled back into a whirlpool of violence that finally kills her.
Mercy was inspired, in part, by Slaughter's grandmother, who was abused by her husband. "With my grandmother, we never talked about how she'd have a black eye or a broken bone. It was just a joke that she was clumsy," Slaughter says. "She died in her 40s, and I realized that our silence never protected her. It only protected him. That's one reason why I write in an unflinching way about these situations--there's no fading to black. There's nothing sexy or private that I want readers to stay out of when we're talking about domestic violence."
Slaughter has always preferred to approach the world with no-bullshit candor, but it hasn't always been easy. As a teenager, she was sent to the principal's office for pasting a photo of Marilyn Monroe's freshly autopsied corpse to her lunchbox ("I thought I was being, like, this evocative feminist talking about the fleeting hope of beauty," she admits with a smirk); in the early years of her career, she fielded constant questions about how she, as a woman, could write about so much violence. "I think men are profoundly uncomfortable reading about violence from a woman's perspective," Slaughter says. "The sense of jeopardy is heightened. And for a lot of them, they see the bad guy doing things they do in real life."
Slaughter was born in 1971 in Jonesboro, Ga., a small city on the southern edge of Atlanta's suburban sprawl. By the time she was 10, the region had been gripped by the saga of the Atlanta Child Murderer, who killed 28 people, mostly children and teenagers, from 1979 to 1981. That story, Slaughter says, as much as her childhood affinity for Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown, accounts for her tack toward crime fiction. "It made me very aware from a young age that crime exists and it can change people's communities," she says. "That's what I like to write about in my novels--not the crime so much as what it leaves behind."
To put it mildly, the approach has resonated. Since Slaughter debuted in 2001 with Blindsighted, which introduced Sara Linton and launched the six-part Grant County series, the author has become a fixture on bestseller lists, selling more than 40 million books, according to her publisher, and being translated into 37 languages. The Will Trent series has spawned a TV procedural on ABC, now in its second season, and Slaughter will spend the fall on set with a miniseries she wrote from her 2017 standalone novel, The Good Daughter, for Peacock. Pieces of Her (2018) got a Netflix adaptation starring Toni Collette.
Slaughter's empire is vast, but she approaches its construction and maintenance with the pragmatism of a public-school teacher. "I don't want to be precious about it," she says. "I think it's really important to hit my deadlines and do my part of the job." Though she was a terrible student, frequently blowing through due dates and bringing home low marks in English (all while making her teacher cry with her literary snobbishness), the machine of Slaughter's success has grown her into a more dependable writer. "I want to make sure I'm not delayed, so then my translator in the Netherlands doesn't have to postpone work and rearrange her schedule. I want to make sure I'm being professional."
It doesn't hurt that, given the choice, Slaughter would dedicate most of her free time to writing. She loves to eat meals with her family, she says, and is liable to spend long afternoons on her rowing machine or at the golf course ("Only nine holes, I'm not a European"), but her perfect day always ends at the keyboard. "It is a job, so I won't say I don't think of it as a job," she says. "But I feel more like myself when I'm writing than when I'm doing most other things."
Not even a chain saw could slice through that.
BY CONNER REED
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Reed, Conner. "WICKED WORLD: Karin Slaughter's unflinching crime novels dare to acknowledge the dangers women face in everyday life." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 22, 3 June 2024, pp. 86+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A800536235/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=fb9816b6. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
This Is Why We Lied
Karin Slaughter. Morrow, $30 (464p)
ISBN 978-0-06-333672-8
A honeymoon turns into a grisly locked-room mystery in Slaughter's harrowing 12th outing for Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent (following After That Night). Will and his bride, medical examiner Sara Linton, plan to celebrate at McAlpine Lodge in northwest Georgia, but on the night they arrive, hotel manager Mercy McAlpine is murdered in one of the property's cabins. Will and Sara jump into action, first turning their suspicion toward Mercy's abusive ex-husband, whom Will knows from the time they spent together in an Atlanta boy's home. As Will and Sarah continue to poke around, however, other suspects come into focus, including Mercy's hot-tempered father and ice-cold mother, who hope to force a sale of the lodge, and a guest who has intimate knowledge of Mercy's criminal past. After Will's Bureau of Investigation colleagues show up, the body count rises, and Will unearths some unspeakable secrets within the McAlpine clan. The subject matter gets almost operatically bleak, but Slaughter saves the day with her gifts for suspense and characterization--Mercy, in particular, makes an impression. This long-running series still has gas in the tank. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Assoc. (Aug.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"This Is Why We Lied." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 22, 3 June 2024, p. 90. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A800536245/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8958fae0. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
This Is Why We Lied. By Karin Slaughter. Aug. 2024. 400p. Morrow, $32 (9780063336728); e-book (9780063336742).
Will Trent and Sara Linton have barely arrived for their honeymoon at McAlpine Lodge when screams lead them to lodge manager Mercy McAlpine, who has been savagely stabbed. She whispers her last words in Will's arms. Will, who has been struggling with the loss of his mother, now must deliver Mercy's message to her teenage son and secure the scene for local police. But Sheriff Biscuits Hartshorne has already pinned Mercy's murder on her abusive ex-husband, Dave, and isn't interested in investigating. Will knows what Dave is capable of. Dave was called "the Jackal" in the group home in which they were placed as kids. But why would he kill Mercy now? Alternative motives abound. Mercy threatened to reveal family secrets that would derail plans to sell the lodge, her brother's creepy friend Chuck was obsessed with her, and the lodge's other guests are throwing up a myriad of red flags. The sheer number of motives should stretch credulity, but Slaughter's skillfully nuanced portrayal of the investigation, exposing abuse, manipulation, and desperate greed, creates a disturbingly realistic page-turner. This bar-raiser for the classic locked-room mystery is in good company with Sarah Pearse's The Sanitorium (2021), Adrian McKinty's The Island (2022), and One by One, by Ruth Ware (2020).--Christine Tran
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Tran, Christine. "This Is Why We Lied." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 19-20, 1 June 2024, p. 39. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A804018199/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=78250cab. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
Slaughter, Karin THIS IS WHY WE LIED Morrow/HarperCollins (Fiction None) $32.00 8, 20 ISBN: 9780063336728
Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton honeymoon at a family lodge that includes breathtaking landscapes, varied guests, troubled family dynamics, and murder.
McAlpine Family Lodge manager Mercy McAlpine has been an outcast within her family ever since Dave McAlpine, an orphan whom her parents adopted, got her pregnant at 15. To her enduring shame, her relatives, from her aunt Delilah to her own brother, Christopher, took Dave to their hearts even as they squeezed her out, snatching baby Jon from her to be raised mostly by Delilah. Sixteen years later, when her father, Cecil, plans to sell the lodge whose operation Mercy's poured herself into, she's had enough, and evidently so have they. Hours after she announces her intention to ruin the lives of any family members who vote with Cecil to sell the place to Max Brouwer and Sydney Flynn for $12 million, Will finds her fatally stabbed near Lake McAlpine, and she dies in his arms. The half-dozen other guests are icing on the cake, since every one of Mercy's relatives had a powerful motive to kill her. The honeymoon isn't exactly over, but Will tells Sara he'd be committed to investigating even if Chuck, the fellow guest who tormented Will in the orphanage where they both grew up, weren't on hand as Christopher's lecherous best friend. The high-octane story inevitably lags when Faith Mitchell, Will's partner in the GBI, arrives to question the suspects, but the shattering climax reveals that the McAlpine family is even more dysfunctional than you imagined.
One character nails it: This is "an Agatha Christie locked-room mystery with a VC Andrews twist."
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"Slaughter, Karin: THIS IS WHY WE LIED." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A804504801/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=23b06e38. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
After That Night. By Karin Slaughter. Aug. 2023.432p. Morrow, $32 (9780063157781); e-book (9780063157811).
As their wedding approaches, a series of unsolved rapes forces the GBI's Dr. Sara Linton and Will Trent, last seen in The Silent Wife (2020), to confront their painful pasts. Three years ago, Sara treated a rape victim, Dani Cooper, who died from her injuries. Now Sara is testifying against Danis rapist, who, in a stroke of bitter irony, is the golden child of her married medical internship rivals, Mac and Britt McAllister. When Britt spitefully alleges that the rape Sara survived during their internship is linked to Danis attack, Sara's carefully suppressed trauma resurfaces. Could her rapist have had ties to her fellow interns? Britt clams up, so Sara, Will, and Will's longtime GBI partner, Faith, launch an off-the-books investigation. Before long, they've discovered disturbing connections between the tight-knit group of successful doctors and other sexual assaults, including the recent disappearance of an Adanta college student. Will is determined to go undercover among Atlanta's elite, but to pull it off, he'll have to trust the aunt who abandoned him as a child. Slaughter develops a striking contrast between the rape ring's twisted pact and the unshakable bonds among Sara, Will, Faith, and their boss, Amanda, infusing the good-versus-evil showdown with gritty investigative detail. The final result is incongruously warm and very, very good.--Christine Tran
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Slaughter's fans will be avid for the latest in this best-selling series, while its costar, state investigator Will Trent, has inspired a show on ABC, further expanding Slaughter's already vast audience.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 American Library Association
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Tran, Christine. "After That Night." Booklist, vol. 119, no. 19-20, 1 June 2023, pp. 36+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A754223049/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0955930c. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
Slaughter, Karin AFTER THAT NIGHT Morrow/HarperCollins (Fiction None) $32.00 8, 22 ISBN: 9780063157781
Another violent crime in Atlanta provokes another deep dive into the tormented past of Slaughter's regulars.
Three years after Dani Cooper, 19, crashes into an ambulance, gets taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, mutters to pediatrician/medical examiner Sara Linton that she thinks she's been raped, and then dies, Thomas Michael McAllister IV is placed on trial for her assault. Since Sara's the only person who heard Dani's gasping recollection, she's the star witness, and she fully expects Douglas Fanning--the sharklike lawyer retained by pediatric surgeon Mac McAllister and his wife, Britt, to protect their well-sheltered son--to force her to testify about her own rape 15 years ago, which resulted in an ectopic pregnancy that ended any chance she might have had of bearing children. Fanning drills Sara unmercifully but doesn't bring up her history. Even more surprisingly, Britt McAllister, when Sara encounters her in the courthouse restroom, smugly informs her: "What happened to you. What happened to Dani. It's all connected." Indeed it is, and in order to work out the connections, Sara, who identified her rapist as janitor Jack Allen Wright, will have to work with her fiance, Will Trent, and his partner, Faith Mitchell of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, to dig deeper. Their goal: to figure out which fellow medical student who attended a fateful mixer all those years ago--a group Sara's now come to think of as the Rape Club--was behind the assault on Dani and a potentially endless list of other victims. These horrors may seem too unspeakable to pin down to any one perpetrator. It's a signal achievement of Slaughter that the climactic revelations add still another layer of horror to her tale.
A grueling, pitiless, yet compassionate anatomy of rape for readers who can take it.
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"Slaughter, Karin: AFTER THAT NIGHT." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A752723026/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=1e50b847. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
Slaughter, Karin. After That Night. Morrow. (Will Trent, Bk. 11). Aug. 2023. 432p. ISBN 9780063157781. $32. THRILLER
In her 11th Will Trent novel (following The Silent Wife), Slaughter skillfully weaves misogyny, wealth, violence, power, and control into a thrilling police procedural while poignantly addressing the lasting effects of trauma and the toll cases take on investigators. Emergency-room doctor Sara Linton's patient, raped and beaten, speaks her last words: "Stop him. Please stop him." Three years later, Sara, now a medical examiner at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, is testifying at the civil trial of the man believed to be responsible, when the mother of the defendant (a former colleague of Sara's) tells her that this case and Sara's sexual assault years earlier are connected. With a renewed commitment to justice for her late patient, the abduction of another woman, and the need to know how the assaults are connected, Sara, her fiance Will Trent, and Will's partner Faith embark on an off-the-books investigation to stop a serial rapist. The case reveals a conspiracy of the rich and powerful intent on getting away with rape, forcing Sara, Will, and Faith to confront their pasts to move forward with the investigation and with their lives. VERDICT This title will appeal to fans of S.A. Cosby, Laura Lippman, and Stacey Abrams. -- George Lichman
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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"After That Night." Library Journal, vol. 148, no. 8, Aug. 2023, p. 64. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A759873630/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=abbcd702. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
Slaughter, Karin GIRL, FORGOTTEN Morrow/HarperCollins (Fiction None) $26.09 8, 23 ISBN: 978-0-06-285811-5
Forty years after the unsolved murder of a Delaware teen, a newly minted U.S. marshal on an apparently unrelated assignment is pulled back into the case.
Emily Vaughn is well and truly cast out. Discovering that she's pregnant even though she has no recollection of having had sex with anyone, she refuses to follow the edict of her censorious parents to name the father and force him into marriage. In return, they turn on her with a grim intensity only Slaughter could summon. But Emily doesn't do cast-out. Even after she's expelled from her school, she shows up at the senior prom in full regalia and is shunned and shamed by virtually everyone who sees her before she's brutally struck down by a shadowy figure. Decades after her death, newly anointed Marshal Andrea Oliver, who knows more than a little about domestic problems--her biological father is doing time for his misdeeds as a psychopathic cult leader--is assigned as part of her initial rotation to protect Judge Esther Rose Vaughn, who's received a series of florid death threats punctuated by a dead rat. Starchy Esther, it turns out, was Emily's mother, and Andrea's gig will bring her uncomfortably close to both Esther and Judith Vaughn, the daughter doctors managed to keep Emily alive long enough to bring to birth 40 years ago. Slaughter is less interested in revealing whodunit than in showcasing the many ways Emily was rejected by her peers, her teacher, and her family and the bitter legacy her supposed transgression left behind, and she brings her trademark intensity to every relationship she lays bare.
Like touching a live wire that continues across three generations.
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"Slaughter, Karin: GIRL, FORGOTTEN." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A711906743/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0b8a0ebb. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
False Witness. By Karin Slaughter. July 2021.400p. Morrow, $28.99 (9780062858092); e-book, $14.99 (9780062858948).
Slaughter shines an intense spotlight on a new normal laced with COVID-19 protocols and a cast of survivors battling a ruthless pandemic, a serial sadist, and a lifetime of unbeatable odds. When Andrew Tenant, the heir to Atlanta's most prestigious auto empire, asks Leigh Collier to lead his defense against rape charges, she feels her suburban fantasy life being snatched away, tossing her back into her squalid childhood home, ducking punches and plotting her escape. As teens, Leigh and her younger sister, Callie, babysat Andrew. They also killed his father, Buddy, when he attempted to kill Callie after years of sexual abuse preying on women while he latest flophouse to strategize how they'll keep what they did hidden. Leigh, haunted by survivor's guilt over Callie's abuse, and Callie, struggling to resist the comfort of a heroin binge, begin using their street smarts and working courtroom angles to wage war against Andrew and finally find peace in their unbreakable connection. Slaughter doesn't save her twists for the end, instead peppering them throughout the intricately layered story amid stomach-churning near misses and gripping character revelations. Equal parts hyperrealistic thriller and epic tragedy, Slaughter's latest is pitch-perfect storytelling. --Christine Tran
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 American Library Association
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Tran, Christine. "False Witness." Booklist, vol. 117, no. 18, 15 May 2021, p. 23. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A663198935/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c1002c29. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
False Witness
Karin Slaughter. Morrow, $28.99 (512p) ISBN 978-0-06-285809-2
In 1998, teen sisters Callie and Leigh, the heroines of this superb thriller from bestseller Slaughter (The Silent Wife), murder Buddy Waleski, who sexually abused them for years while they babysat his son, Trevor, in Chicago. They leave the Waleski kitchen spotless after cleaning up any evidence of the murder and hide Buddy's body. In 2021, Callie, who became addicted to heroin after a gymnastics accident left her in constant pain, and Leigh, a defense attorney, unexpectedly confront the past after Leigh's boss assigns the case of an alleged serial killer to her. During their first meeting, Andrew Tenant tells Leigh he's actually the little boy she once babysat--Trevor Waleski--and implies that he knows the sisters killed his father. Callie and Leigh work urgently to determine how and what he knows. Breaking into the abandoned former Waleski house, Callie finds a crawl space with cameras aimed both at the kitchen where Buddy's murder occurred and the living room couch where Callie was repeatedly raped as a 12-year-old by Buddy. If Leigh doesn't secure a not guilty verdict, the pathological Andrew threatens to retaliate by releasing his father's videos to the media and murdering her 16-year-old daughter. A shocking tragedy at the end will keep readers transfixed. Slaughter is writing at the top of her game. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Assoc. (July)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 PWxyz, LLC
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"False Witness." Publishers Weekly, vol. 268, no. 22, 31 May 2021, p. 41. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A664617221/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=fb27bf9b. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
Slaughter, Karin FALSE WITNESS Morrow/HarperCollins (Fiction None) $28.99 7, 20 ISBN: 978-0-06-285809-2
A master of the no-holds-barred law enforcement thriller turns to legal intrigue, with shattering results.
A week before he’s to stand trial for the aggravated assault and rape of DataTel district manager Tammy Karlsen, car-dealership scion Andrew Tenant fires his lawyer and asks for a new one: Leigh Collier, a rising star at an Atlanta white-shoe firm. Originally baffled by the request, Leigh quickly realizes that her new client has a special reason to have asked for her: He’s recognized her from a magazine photo as the older sister of Callie, the babysitter who killed his father, Buddy Waleski, when his latest pedophile assault on her turned violent 23 years ago. In fact, the truth is even darker than that. Leigh was an active participant in the killing. Now she's determined to do everything she can to torpedo the defense she's preparing for Andrew, who’s accused of stabbing Tammy Karlsen in exactly the way Callie stabbed his father, while persuading both her client and her watchful senior partner that she’s doing her utmost to represent him. As she learns more and more particulars about the case and her client, Leigh realizes that her plan doesn’t go nearly far enough. Andrew is guilty of this assault and others, but he doesn’t just want her to get him off: He plans to blackmail her into complying with a potentially endless series of demands. How can she strike back at a monster who holds all the cards? Only by tapping into the depthless power of sisterhood with Callie, who’s descended into addiction but still loves Leigh with a ferocity that makes the pair of them as dangerous as the man who’s targeted them.
Combines disarming sensitivity to the nuances of the tangled relations among the characters with sledgehammer plotting.
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"Slaughter, Karin: FALSE WITNESS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2021, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A667042113/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=891a41e1. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
Slaughter, Karin THE SILENT WIFE Morrow/HarperCollins (Fiction None) $20.49 8, 4 ISBN: 978-0-06-285810-8
A Georgia prison inmate’s offer to unmask a phone-smuggling operation in return for reopening his pedophilia conviction leads Slaughter’s regulars into an eight-year-old case that strikes all too close to home.
Daryl Nesbitt insists to Will Trent and Faith Mitchell, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, that he was railroaded by Grant County Detective Lena Adams and that the sexual images of children on his computer were fruit of the poisonous tree that should never have been admitted into evidence. He certainly didn’t attack Grant Tech student Rebecca Caterino, brutally assault her, and leave her for dead; the real scandals are that Lena, the ranking detective on the scene, didn’t realize that Beckey was alive till GBI medical examiner Sara Linton realized it half an hour after the police came on the scene and that after Lena sent Leslie Truong, the fellow student who found Beckey’s body, walking back to campus, Leslie was raped and murdered before she arrived. Not only are there horrors aplenty along the trail of what looks like a serial killer who may still be notching two victims a year, but revisiting the earlier crimes gives Slaughter, through a series of extended flashbacks, a chance to relitigate the breakup of Sara’s marriage to late Grant County chief of police Jeffrey Tolliver, who headed the investigation that sent Daryl Nesbitt to jail. Slaughter, renowned for her shocking opening sequences, this time reserves the horrors for her unflinching descriptions of the multiple assaults, some of which result in fates worse than death for the victims, and for Sara’s confrontation with a killer who’s both monstrous and all too human.
More slow-burning than most of Slaughter’s shockers, this one will still rattle you down to your bones.
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"Slaughter, Karin: THE SILENT WIFE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2020. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A630892401/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=efadd968. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
The Silent Wife
Karin Slaughter. Morrow, $28.99 (400p)
ISBN 978-0-06-285810-8
In bestseller Slaughter's macabre 10th thriller featuring Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent (after 2019's The Last Widow), Will and his partner, Faith Mitchell, are investigating a prison murder when inmate Daryl Nesbitt extends an offer. Nesbitt will tell them who the killer is if the GBI will look into eight incidents--one recent--that he believes are connected to the rape of Beckey Caterino eight years earlier. Nesbitt is serving time for child pornography discovered on his computer during the cops' investigation of the Caterino case, but Nesbitt maintains that Chief Jeffrey Tolliver--the now-deceased husband of Will's girlfriend, medical examiner Sara Linton--framed him, and that a sadistic serial attacker remains at large. Will's scrutiny of Jeffrey's detective work sends Sara on a wistful trip down memory lane, leaving Will uncertain of their future. Will and Jeffrey's inquiries, unfolding through frequent flashbacks, add nuance and complexity to an already intricate plot. Slaughter delivers an unflinching, deeply empathetic exploration of the stigma surrounding rape and the enduring trauma suffered by its survivors. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Assoc. (Aug.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 PWxyz, LLC
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"The Silent Wife." Publishers Weekly, vol. 267, no. 20, 18 May 2020, p. 37. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A625410812/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=e057f062. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
The Silent Wife. By Karin Slaughter. July 2020. 400p. Morrow, $28.99 (9780062858108); e-book, $14.99 (9780062858917).
First, a prison inmate trying to trade information for better accommodations suggests that there's more to an old case than what police uncovered. Then a woman reported missing is found dead in the woods with wounds reminiscent of those of Rebecca Caterino, a college student out for an early-morning run eight years earlier who was attacked, raped, and left for dead, a case that was bungled by law enforcement. This is particularly sensitive for Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents Faith Mitchell and Will Trent, since the Caterino case was led by the late police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, husband of Trent's longtime lover and GBI medical examiner Dr. Sara Linton. While Mitchell and Trent strongly suspect a serial killer, their supervisor is wary of making that leap. So the agents keep digging, beginning with Caterinos widowed father and eventually hitting pay dirt with the shady but thorough private investigator he had hired. At the same time, the Linton-Trent relationship is strained despite the deep love they share. The narrative moves between the unsolved Caterino case and the present, gathering momentum as it goes, for another riveting entry in the Will Trent series.--Michele Leber
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Slaughter M adds depth to her best-selling series with the investigations of old and current cases, while also advancing the key personal relationship. Another slam dunk.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 American Library Association
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Leber, Michele. "The Silent Wife." Booklist, vol. 116, no. 17, 1 May 2020, pp. 47+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A623790733/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bcc4dca0. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
Slaughter, Karin THE LAST WIDOW Morrow/HarperCollins (Adult Fiction) $27.99 8, 20 ISBN: 978-0-06-285808-5
Pediatrician/medical examiner Sara Linton's path to marrying Will Trent, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, runs into apocalyptic obstacles only Slaughter could devise.
To begin with, Sara's mother objects so strenuously to Will that she won't even utter his name. But her opposition can't compete with the carnage that erupts when Sara and Will (The Kept Woman, 2016, etc.), hearing the sounds of a bomb near Emory University, rush to the scene and encounter along the way the aftermath of a three-car collision. Stopping to help, they soon smell something amiss, but not soon enough to prevent them from being overpowered and separated by the supposed victims. Will is beaten to the ground; Sara is whisked off in a car whose occupants include Michelle Spivey, a scientist with the Centers for Disease Control who was abducted from under her young daughter's nose a month ago. Arriving at the mountain encampment of the Invisible Patriot Army, a paramilitary cadre determined to make America white again, Sara is first forced to treat the wounds of the men who kidnapped her and then asked by IPA leader Dash to remain so that she can treat an outbreak of measles that's swept through the children in the camp, including Dash's daughter, whose mother is Gwen Novak, the daughter of Martin Novak, whose history of anti-government bank robberies has made him a high-value federal prisoner. As Will schemes to infiltrate the camp disguised as a new recruit, Sara is dismayed to find that no matter what she does, the children she's tending keep getting sicker and sicker. Even the most ardent fans of Slaughter's white-hot thrillers (Pieces of Her, 2018, etc.) will be shocked and horror-stricken by the outrage Dash has planned.
All the emotional intensity Slaughter's readers expect, now focused on a diabolical domestic terrorist. Don't say you weren't warned.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Slaughter, Karin: THE LAST WIDOW." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2019, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A591279204/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3e9b543d. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
The Last Widow.
By Karin Slaughter.
Aug. 2019.464p. Morrow, $27.99 (9780062858085); e-book, $13.99 (9780062858887).
The latest entry in the Will Trent series (and the first since The Kept Woman, 2016) is cause for celebration by fans of Slaughter, in particular, and of crime fiction in general. A month after Michelle Spivey, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control, is kidnapped, explosions are set off at Emory University. Arriving at the scene, Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) agent Will Trent and Sara Linton, GBI medical examiner and Will's lover, are stopped at an odd accident scene, where attackers assault Will and abduct Sara. Bereft at his failure to stop the attack and still in severe pain, Will perseveres to do whatever it takes to save Sara. But he's up against the Invisible Patriot Army (IPA), a paramilitary white nationalist group led by a pedophile known as Dash, who plans to send a message to the nation that will cause countless casualties. As the narrative moves between law-enforcement officers and the secluded IPA camp, and time becomes critical, the depth of the relationship between Will and Sara is also vividly portrayed. With familiar characters, further developed here, and a plot as timely as it is riveting, Slaughter's latest will enthrall her ever-growing legion of fans.--Michele Leber
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Slaughter's thrillers have become near-automatic bestsellers, and this is one of her best.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 American Library Association
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Leber, Michele. "The Last Widow." Booklist, vol. 115, no. 21, 1 July 2019, pp. 27+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A595705027/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7aaaaa81. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
The Last Widow
Karin Slaughter. Morrow, $27.99 (464p) ISBN 978-0-06-285808-5
In bestseller Slaughter's harrowing seventh novel featuring Sara Linton and her boyfriend, Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent (after 2016's The Kept Woman), Sara and Will are visiting her family in the Atlanta suburbs when explosions rock nearby Emory University. As the couple heads toward campus, they encounter a multiple-car accident. Sara stops to offer medical assistance and discovers that one vehicle contains several armed men--two with gunshot wounds--and a traumatized woman she recognizes as missing CDC epidemiologist Michelle Spivey. After a brutal fight that injures Will, the men take Sara and flee. Will is certain that Sara's kidnappers bombed Emory, and intelligence suggests the men are part of a paramilitary group that's planning something catastrophic. With the clock ticking, Will and his partner, Faith Mitchell, scramble to follow bread crumbs left by a terrified but determined Sara. Vivid characters and rapidly escalating stakes complement the riveting, adrenaline-fueled plot. Along the way, Slaughter examines such topics as misogyny, white nationalism, and the politicization of law enforcement. Thriller fans will devour this visceral, gratifying entry. Author tour. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Assoc. (Aug.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 PWxyz, LLC
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"The Last Widow." Publishers Weekly, vol. 266, no. 25, 24 June 2019, p. 146. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A592040025/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c9bcf8a6. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
The novelist Karin Slaughter, whose thriller ''Pieces of Her'' will be published in August, says school contests made her an insatiable reader: ''I'm incredibly competitive, so perhaps my early reading passion came from wanting to humiliate my closest reading rivals by volume.''
What books are on your nightstand?
A galley of Lee Child's upcoming ''Past Tense''; ''The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic,'' by Benjamin Carter Hett; ''The Lost Life of Eva Braun,'' by Angela Lambert; ''Circe,'' by Madeline Miller; ''So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y'all Don't Even Know,'' by Retta; ''Less,'' by Andrew Sean Greer; ''Atticus Finch: The Biography,'' by Joseph Crespino.
Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).
Atlanta is razor-hot right now, so I blast the air-conditioner in my office for pretend winter, snuggle under a blanket with my cat, Dexter, and make sure the reading lamp is on high, because for some crazy reason the words on the page look tinier without light. Maybe it's because of global warming, because I'm too young for that crap.
What's your favorite book of all time?
This is complicated because ''Gone With the Wind'' exists as one of the main pillars of the odious Lost Cause narrative, but it's also one of the pivotal books I read in childhood that helped shape me as a writer. When I came across it in the library, there were not a lot of novels where women were allowed to be confident and commanding without being violently murdered by the end of the story.
Which books got you hooked on crime fiction?
I discovered Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone series in my teens and found them to be inspiring as well as an excellent counterbalance to my headier teen reading: ''Flowers in the Attic,'' by V. C. Andrews, and ''Lace,'' by Shirley Conran.
Who's your favorite fictional detective? And the best villain?
Sara Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski kicked butt well before it was acceptable for ladies to do that kind of thing. There's an entire generation of women writing strong women because of Sara. For villains, I'd have to say Mayella Ewell from ''To Kill a Mockingbird,'' though with some reservations. On one hand, she was horribly abused by her father; on the other, she contributes to the spurious apologue of the vindictive woman who uses false rape allegations to strike out at a man.
What makes for a good thriller?
Character has to matter as much as plot. If they're not equally strong, then no one really cares what happens.
What kinds of stories are you drawn to? And what do you steer clear of?
I'll read anything -- nonfiction, true crime, historical fiction. As long as it's well told, I'm there. While I enjoy a lot of science fiction, when it gets into the nitty gritty of the tensile strength of the titanium cables threaded into the wings of the automatovelociraptor, you've lost me.
What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?
People are always surprised that I read a lot of history, but I feel that good crime fiction holds a mirror up to society and tells readers what's going on in the world. You can't do that effectively without understanding history.
Who is your favorite overlooked or underappreciated writer?
Clare Chambers (''Learning to Swim,'' ''The Editor's Wife'') is an English author who's fantastic at writing about crazy, eclectic families. What keeps Clare from being the English Anne Tyler is there's always someone who is acutely aware of not quite fitting in. There's something heartbreaking about the fact that most people who are unusual only ever long to be normal.
What kind of reader were you as a child?
Insatiable -- though to be honest there were lots of reading contests in my school, and I'm incredibly competitive, so perhaps my early reading passion came from wanting to humiliate my closest reading rivals by volume.
Favorite childhood literary character or hero?
I loved Encyclopedia Brown and aspired to be him, which endeared me to exactly no one in my family (he's clearly overeducated for his intelligence). There's been a lot of chatter about Sally Kimball's place in the Brown canon because she was sometimes ''allowed'' to contribute to the crime-solving, but she was arguably a violent bully. Thank God she was also the prettiest girl in school; otherwise, they would have beaten the hell out of her every day.
What's the last book you recommended to a member of your family?
''Grief Is the Thing With Feathers,'' by Max Porter. It's part bereavement counselor, part anger management.
What's the best book you ever received as a gift?
''Slammerkin,'' by Emma Donoghue, was given to me a few birthdays ago. I was going on and on about ''The Crimson Petal and the White,'' by Michel Faber, and a friend said, ''This will knock the breath out of you.'' He was right.
If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?
''The Giving Tree,'' by Shel Silverstein, about a Low-IQ Tree that lets a WEAK kid take Everything starting with all of his big, beautiful Apples and, the tree is so Pathetic, because he used to be the strongest tree but now the World is laughing at him.
What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn't? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
''Orlando,'' by Virginia Woolf, answers both of those questions. Good God, even two lifetimes is not enough to grit through the pages.
If you were to write something besides thrillers, what would you write?
The terrific gift about thriller-writing today is that the books can exist as hybrids. In some iteration, I've written love stories, polemics, historical novels, family sagas ... The fact that people are murdered and the reader is told why slots me into the thriller category, and I'm absolutely fine with that. I have always loved thrillers -- you can get away with anything in them.
Whom would you choose to write your life story?
I want to say Alafair Burke because she would make the truth interesting, but then I know she'd tell the truth. So maybe James Patterson, because I think my life lends itself to short, pacey chapters.
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?
Flannery O'Connor has always fascinated me. Growing up in a small town with weird thoughts and being constantly told that it wasn't ladylike to write dark stories and that I'd never make much of myself if I didn't learn how to blend in, it was stunning (and gratifying) to find an example of a woman from a small town with weird thoughts writing dark stories who was celebrated throughout the world. What I'd want to ask her is which stories came from happiness and which came from sadness, because only she would know.
What book do you think everybody should read?
''Ethan Frome,'' by Edith Wharton, though any Wharton will do. She embodied the dictum that the difference between a painter and an artist is that an artist knows when to stop painting.
What do you plan to read next?
''Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South,'' by Keri Leigh Merritt. I read an interview with the author a few months ago and was intrigued by the scope of her work. I've lived in the South my entire life and I love it here, but I am acutely aware that people who think they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps often forget that someone had to make the boots.
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Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 The New York Times Company
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"Karin Slaughter." The New York Times Book Review, 22 July 2018, p. 7(L). Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A547175450/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d159e50c. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
Slaughter, Karin PIECES OF HER Morrow/HarperCollins (Adult Fiction) $27.99 8, 21 ISBN: 978-0-06-243027-4
A plain-Jane daughter's 31st birthday celebration explodes into a nightmare within a nightmare in Slaughter's latest stand-alone.
Andrea Oliver's always felt inferior to her parents. Her father, Gordon Oliver, is a trusts and estates attorney; her mother, Dr. Laura Oliver, is a speech therapist. Andy herself has never aspired to any career goal higher than serving as an assistant to someone important. Even when she left Belle Isle, Georgia, for the Big Apple, she got nowhere, and she was only too eager to return home when her mother announced three years ago that she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. As the two women mark Andy's birthday by sharing lunch in a mall cafe, a crazed shooter opens fire on a mother-and-daughter pair who've stopped to greet Laura, and Andy's life changes in an instant. Or rather two instants, the first when the shots ring out and the second when Laura, after inviting the killer to shoot her next, coolly and dispassionately dispatches him. It takes the dazed Andy hours to realize that her mother's not at all who she seems to be, and by the time she's ready to accept the fact that Laura Oliver is a woman with a past, that past is already racing to catch up with both mother and daughter. Cutting back and forth between Andy's harrowing flight to nowhere after Laura pushes her out of her home and a backstory 30 years earlier involving the Army of the Changing World, a cell of amateur terrorists determined to strike a mortal blow against greedy capitalists and, it eventually turns out, each other as well, Slaughter (The Good Daughter, 2017, etc.) never abates her trademark intensity, and fans will feel that the story is pumping adrenalin directly into their bloodstreams. Long before the end, though, the impostures, secret identities, hidden motives, and double-crosses will have piled up past the point of no return, leaving the tale to run on adrenalin alone.
Reading anything by Slaughter is like riding a particularly scary amusement park ride. Reading this one is like booking a season ticket on a ride that never lets you off.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Slaughter, Karin: PIECES OF HER." Kirkus Reviews, 1 June 2018. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A540723363/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=50cb619b. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
Pieces of Her.
By Karin Slaughter.
July 2018. 400p. Morrow, $27.99 (9780062430274); e-book, $4.99 (9780062430298).
Slaughter moves in a new direction with this story of a woman whose past catches up with her. Mousy Laura Cooper lives a quiet life in Georgia with her twentysomething daughter, Andrea. One morning, the women are in a restaurant when a man bursts in and starts shooting. Laura leaps up and kills the man, leaving Andrea (and the whole world, thanks to another diner's cellphone video) wondering where the hell Laura's ninja-like skills came from. When Andrea witnesses a stranger threatening Laura in their home the next day, Laura forces Andrea out of town to keep her safe. That backfires as Andrea becomes determined to uncover her mom's past, which is a doozy of a tale. Slaughter reveals the story bit by bit in chapters that leap from 1986 to the present, leading the reader from Oslo to San Francisco to Texas and back to Georgia. Her talent for writing convincingly flawed yet sympathetic characters is in high relief here, as she juggles the mystery of Laura, past and present. Readers will find themselves totally immersed in the suspenseful, alternating story lines and won't want either of them to end.--Rebecca Vnuk
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY; This departure from Slaughter's more-gruesome stand-alone thrillers and popular series mysteries will more than satisfy her many fans.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Vnuk, Rebecca. "Pieces of Her." Booklist, vol. 114, no. 17, 1 May 2018, p. 31. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A539647236/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=87fdbcea. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
Slaughter, Karin THE GOOD DAUGHTER Morrow/HarperCollins (Adult Fiction) $27.99 8, 8 ISBN: 978-0-06-243024-3
Slaughter's latest break from the punishing travails of Dr. Sara Linton and Will Trent (The Kept Woman, 2016, etc.) uses a school shooting to reunite two sisters who've had compelling reasons for avoiding each other in the years since their own childhood horrors.Twenty-eight years ago, two masked men broke into attorney Rusty Quinn's Georgia home looking for the man of the house, the kind of lawyer who gives lawyers a bad name. In Rusty's absence, things went south instantly, leaving Gamma Quinn dead, her daughter Samantha shot in the head and buried alive, and her daughter Charlotte fleeing in terror. Sam somehow survived and rose above her brain damage to become a successful New York patent attorney; Charlie remained in Pikeville, joined the criminal defense bar, and married ADA Ben Bernard. But she and Ben have separated; she's taken solace in some quick sex with a stranger in a parking lot; and when she goes to the middle school where her one-night stand works as a history teacher to pick up the cellphone she left behind, she walks into the middle of a shooting that brings back all her own trauma. Goth girl Kelly Wilson admits she shot and killed Douglas Pinkman, the school principal, and 8-year-old Lucy Alexander, but Rusty, whose inbox is already overflowing with hate mail provoked by all the lowlifes he's defended, is determined to serve as her attorney, with Sam as a most unlikely second chair. In addition to the multilayered conflicts among the Quinns and everyone else in town, Sam, who urged her sister to flee their childhood nightmare, and Charlie, who's had to live with fleeing ever since, will have to deal with memories that make it hard for them to sit in the same room. It's hard to think of any writer since Flannery O'Connor, referenced at several key moments here, who's succeeded as consistently as Slaughter at using horrific violence to evoke pity and terror. Whether she's extending her franchise or creating stand-alones like this, she really does make your hair stand on end.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Slaughter, Karin: THE GOOD DAUGHTER." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2017. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A499572816/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8834ff27. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
The Good Daughter. By Karin Slaughter. Aug. 2017. 512p. Morrow, $27.99 (9780062686831); e-book, S 13.99 (9780062430267).
Slaughter stays true to form in her third stand-alone thriller (after 2015 s Pretty Girls), not pulling any punches when it comes to the sordid things people are capable of inflicting on one another. As teens, sisters Charlie and Sam endured a living nightmare when a local hood, seeking revenge on their lawyer father, murdered their mother before marching the girls into the woods. Sam narrowly escaped being buried alive, while Charlie buried what happened to her deep inside. Nearly 30 years later, both women, now attorneys themselves, are fragile (Charlie, emotionally; Sam, physically) and estranged from one another. When Charlie gets caught in the middle of a school shooting, all hell breaks loose as the past catches up to the present, grim secrets are revealed, and the sisters come together to heal their wounds and their family. It's not hyperbolic to declare that Slaughter is a master of her craft. Her characters--even the secondary ones--are deep and multifaceted, and here, the tightly packed story unfolds at a perfect pace that leaves readers frantically turning pages even as the harrowing violence within makes them cringe.--Rebecca Vnuk
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Slaughter routinely hits the best-seller lists and is a favorite of both librarians and patrons. She will disappoint neither with her latest.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Vnuk, Rebecca. "The Good Daughter." Booklist, vol. 113, no. 19-20, June 2017, p. 59. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A498582727/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=365109e8. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
The Kept Woman. By Karin Slaughter. Sept. 2016.416p. Morrow, $27.99 (97800624302121; e book, $12.99 (9780062430236).
After two exceptional stand-alones, Slaughter returns to her best-selling series featuring Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) agent Will Trent. After a retired Atlanta cop is murdered at a construction site owned by pro basketball player Marcus Rippy, whom Trent tried unsuccessfully to convict of rape, the GBI finds a gun at the scene registered to Angie Polaski, along with a lot of blood of her B-negative type. Ex-cop Angie is Trent's toxic ex-wife, a part of his life for 30 years since they were both abused kids, but mostly a source of pain for him now that he's been with Medical Examiner Sara Linton for two years. Still, he has to know whether Angie is dead or alive. Despite Trent's emotional involvement, he and partner Faith Mitchell start looking for answers and soon find more bodies. The investigation takes them first to the sports-management firm that handled Rippy and then beyond, revealing, in the process, secrets about Angie's past. Graphic violence, expected from Slaughter, dots the pages of this compelling novel, along with suspense that continually ratchets upward, a revealing look at domestic violence in all levels of society, and the continued development of a tight-knit cast of characters. This is prime Slaughter, must-read fare for thriller fans. --Michele Leber
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Slaughter is a permanent fixture on thrillerdom's A-list, and a new Will Trent novel after a three-year absence will only heighten the interest.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
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Leber, Michele. "The Kept Woman." Booklist, vol. 112, no. 19-20, 1 June 2016, p. 51. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A456094137/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=e6c5e0b6. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
The Kept Woman
Karin Slaughter. Morrow, $27.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-06-243021-2
Dale Harding, the, murder victim at the center of bestseller Slaughter's exciting if flawed sixth novel starring Will Trent and Dr. Sara Linton (after 2013's Unseen), was a retired (and dirty) Atlanta cop. Harding's body turns up in a nightclub belonging to a celebrity athlete who recently beat a rape charge in a case handled by Will, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent. A gun at the crime scene ties the whole mess to Angie Polaski, Will's dangerously off-kilter wife, who frequently leaves him for long periods but always returns. Further complications follow after Sara, Will's current girlfriend, who's now a GBI medical examiner, tells him that Harding wasn't the only one who suffered--and bled a lot--in the club. The case becomes almost too large for Slaughter to contain, which could explain her choice to rely on, an awkward extended flashback sequence, but she mostly manages to wrangle this installment into an intense look at the nature of loss and control, and how love can taint both. Five-city author tour. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Associates. (Sept.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
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"The Kept Woman." Publishers Weekly, vol. 263, no. 30, 25 July 2016, p. 46. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A460285463/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4a5e30ac. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.