Publishers Weekly
08/21/2023
Bestseller Slaughter’s disappointing 11th entry featuring Georgia investigator Will Trent (after 2020’s The Silent Wife) traces the fallout from a sexual assault. Doctor Sara Linton (from Slaughter’s Grant County series) is working at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital when 19-year-old Dani Cooper is admitted with fatal injuries from a car accident. Sara also recognizes signs of rape, which Dani confirms with her dying breaths. Having been raped herself 15 years earlier, Sara vows to bring Dani’s assailant to justice. Three years later, Sara prepares to go on the stand in a case against Tommy McCallister, who’s been charged with Dani’s assault; meanwhile, Tommy’s parents, multimillionaire doctors Britt and Mac McCallister, pressure Dani’s family into accepting a settlement that will keep Tommy out of jail. Sara enlists Trent—her fiancé—and his investigative partner Faith Mitchell to dig up information about the McCallisters, and they stumble on a bombshell piece of information that may reframe Sara’s own assault. Slaughter is hardly in top form here: the repetitive, protracted plot hinges on too many coincidences and easy confessions. Fans will hope for a return to form the next time out. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Assoc. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
Grueling, pitiless, yet compassionate…. It’s a signal achievement of Slaughter that the climactic revelations add still another layer of horror to her tale.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on After That Night
“Slaughter’s fans will be avid for the latest in this bestselling series, while its costar, state investigator Will Trent, has inspired a show on ABC, further expanding Slaughter’s already vast audience.” — Booklist (starred review) on After That Night
“It is a sign of Karin Slaughter’s skill that although there is far more talk than action this novel is never less than nail-biting…. The final twist—a touch of ironic genius—will make your jaw drop.” — London Times (UK) on After That Night
“An irresistible thriller powered by righteous anger.” — The Mail on Sunday on After That Night
“Karin Slaughter raises her game with every book. After That Night is compulsive reading.” — Clare Mackintosh, author of I Let You Go
“Karin Slaughter always keeps me hooked and Girl, Forgotten is no exception. Totally worthy of a no interruptions, read-all-day bingeathon.” — Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“It just doesn’t get any better than this five-star story.” — Mystery & Suspense Magazine on After That Night
“It is a sign of Karin Slaughter’s skill that although there is far more talk than action this novel is never less than nail-biting … The final twist — a touch of ironic genius — will make your jaw drop.” — Times
“[Slaughter] brings her trademark intensity to every relationship she lays bare. Like touching a live wire that continues across three generations.” — Kirkus Reviews on Girl, Forgotten
“Layer upon layer of mystery, a great cast of characters, and some genuinely startling twists. This is Slaughter at her best.” — Booklist (starred review) on Girl, Forgotten
“Slaughter skillfully leads readers on a thrilling journey into the past to solve the murder that a small town wants to forget, yet is still haunted by.” — Library Journal (starred review) on Girl, Forgotten
“Gripping.... Slaughter reliably entertains.” — Publishers Weekly on Girl, Forgotten
“Cunningly conceived and written . . . Deeply satisfying.” — Washington Post on False Witness
“Annnnd she does it again. Slaughter’s latest high-stakes thriller follows a defense attorney whose dark past is coming back to haunt her—all thanks to a new client she’s called in to represent days before his trial. There’s deception, sabotage, violence, family secrets . . . all the stuff you could want from a fictional page-turner, really.” — theSkimm on False Witness
“Karin Slaughter’s False Witness is a twisty, searingly contemporary mystery steeped in a dark past, and she weaves a story that catches your breath and keeps you gasping and guessing until the end.” — Stacey Abrams, author of While Justice Sleeps, on False Witness
“Slaughter offers us a high-stakes thriller that handles the tragedy of addiction with empathy and grace. Her heroines are believable, flawed and courageous.” — Oyinkan Braithwaite, award-winning author of My Sister, The Serial Killer, on False Witness
“All of Slaughter’s books... are satisfyingly surprising and plausible, but it’s Slaughter’s prodigious gifts of characterization that make her stand out among thriller writers…Slaughter’s satirical touches are as deft as her grimmer renditions of real life.” — Washington Post on Pieces of Her
“The ever-popular crime novelist is back with another pulse-pounding standalone, this one considering the twisted relationship between a mother and a daughter after the latter realizes she may not know the woman who gave birth to her at all.” — Entertainment Weekly on Pieces of Her
“Expect from a Karin Slaughter crime thriller . . . just the right amount of twists, turns, shocks, surprises and domestic thrill and shrill.” — Parade
“The success of writers like Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins and Karin Slaughter isn’t just due to the fact that they’re women. . . . It’s about writers comprehending why women are so compelled by stories about brutal, graphic violence in the first place.” — The Atlantic
“Her talent is the equivalent of an Edgar Allan Poe or a Nathaniel Hawthorne . . . An exemplary storyteller, weaving her words with skill and intelligence. She will be recognized as one of the great talents of the 21st century and will hold an honored place in the realm of world literature.” — Huffington Post
“One of the boldest thriller writers working today.” — Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author
“Her characters, plot, and pacing are unrivaled among thriller writers, and if you haven’t yet read her, this is the moment.” — Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author
Mail on Sunday (London)
An irresistible thriller powered by righteous anger.”
AudioFile
Kathleen Early delivers a captivating performance…Listeners will be enthralled by the twists and turns of the investigation…[and] nonstop engagement from start to finish. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
The Times (London)
This novel is never less than nail-biting...[and a] scorching depiction of toxic masculinity...The final twist—a touch of ironic genius— will make your jaw drop.”
author of I Let You Go Clare Mackintosh
Karin Slaughter raises her game with every book. After That Night is compulsive reading.”
Barnes&Noble.com
Will Trent knows the ins and outs of the human condition as well as he knows Atlanta. Which is to say, very well. Be charmed and prepared to ‘feel seen’ when Will’s on the case.”
Library Journal
08/01/2023
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 fiancé 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
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-05-24
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.
