Firstly I have to come clean and say I am a big fan of Karin Slaughter so was really looking forward to reading this book - and I wasn’t disappointed. This story of two sisters who came from an incredibly dysfunctional family, together with something that happened in their childhood draws you in from the first chapter. Yes this is a tense, well written crime thriller but beware, there are moments of wonderful emotion (I actually cried on a number of occasions) which you would expect from a standard crime thriller. This has been a pleasure to read and I’m now looking forward to reading the next one!

New author for so looked forward to reading. It had me from the first page with lots of twists and turns. Difficult to put down as just wanted to get to the end. Bit dark and deep but it’s was a good read.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins Uk for the read

The description for this book doesn’t give much away, but it’s worth stating from the offset that this is a truly dark tale full of triggers for sexual abuse, paedophillia and drug abuse. It’s tough going at times, and after the first chapter (which, objectively, I have to say is an amazing first chapter with a killer twist) I was unsure I was in the right headspace for it. But I carried on.

And, this book does have a beautiful way of showing that even in the darkest places there can be some humour, hope and love. But it’s no walk in the park.

It’s a story of two sisters, forever bonded by family ties but almost estranged, the women have grown up to live very different lives. Leigh is a successful defence lawyer with a teenage daughter in private school. Callie, on the other hand, drifts in and out of work and battles a heroin addiction after suffering a sports injury when she was young.

“Pain could be its own addiction. Callie had lived with it for so long that when she thought of her life before, she only saw tiny bursts of light, stars barely penetrating the darkness.”

But the two aren’t only bonded by blood. They have a secret. The girls did something very bad when they were teenagers, and Leigh’s latest client wants the truth to come out.

What they did isn’t much of a mystery as it’s revealed in the very first chapter, but it’s still best discovered for yourself. Really, this book is less of a crime thriller and more an exploration of the trauma that abuse can cause, the way lives can be forever changed and ripped apart. It’s not the most cheerful read – it’s downright depressing in places – but it’s also peppered with a little quirky humour, and authentic characters who are brave and empathetic.

This book is one of the first books I’ve read which is set in current times, Covid and all. There’s a lot of references to “masking up”, sanitiser and all the trivial parts of pandemic life we’ve become used to over the past year.

“Someone in the computer room coughed, and everyone winced, then immediately turned accusatory, eyes darting around as if they wanted to burn the culprit at the stake.”

For me personally, it was too close to reality and I don’t want it in my fiction. It is explained more in the author’s note and I understand why the author did it – I just kind of wish I’d been prepared for it going in. She says:

“As horrible as these last eighteen months have been, the ensuing crisis has provided a foundation for the kind of socially conscious storytelling that has come to define my work”

And I have to admire that. As well as crafting a highly emotive tale of trauma and abuse, Slaughter offers a deeper exploration on the impact of Covid-19 on the legal system and on those living on the edge of society, struggling with addiction. This wasn’t the easiest read, but it is eye-opening, emotional and everything you’d expect from a top-notch author.

Nothing bad happens to the cat…

Back when they were teenagers, sisters Callie and Leigh committed a terrible crime, although they had good justification for it. Since then, Callie has spiralled into drug addiction, partly because of this early experience, and partly from getting hooked on pain medication after an accident that has left her with all kinds of physical problems. Leigh, on the other hand, has lifted herself out of their deprived beginnings, becoming a lawyer now working in a prestigious firm. One day she is asked to defend a man who has been charged with a horrific rape. She doesn’t recognise Andrew at first, but he recognises her – and he knows what she and Callie did that night. And it soon becomes clear he’s enjoying the power this gives him over both sisters…

I’ll admit it straight away – I found the subject matter of this sordid and the graphic descriptions of rape, extreme drug abuse, violence and gore more than distasteful. The constant, casual use of the foulest of foul language didn’t help matters. By the time I finished I felt that I needed to scrub my mind out with a brillo pad to get rid of the slime. Slaughter and I are clearly not kindred spirits.

Trying to be objective, it is well written for the most part and the characterisation of the two sisters is done well, even if that meant that I disliked both of them to the point of not wishing to spend time in their company and not caring what happened to them. Andrew, the rapist client of Leigh, is a stock psychopath from central casting, caricatured way past the point of credibility. But all three of them are merely vehicles for Slaughter to use her clearly well-practised shock tactics on the reader. The plot is entirely secondary to the horrors she shows us along the way, from repeated descriptions of both child and adult rape of the most violent kind, to the lovingly detailed and very lengthy descriptions of Callie’s drug taking, including how best to inject oneself through an abscess to get the thrill of added pain, to violent beatings in which she lingers on the crushed bones, detached eyeballs, etc., etc.

Apart from my general disgust, the real problem from a literary point of view is that it’s incredibly repetitive. We revisit the original event many, many times – not gradually learning more, we already know what happened, but just going over it again and again which, since it involves child rape, I could seriously have lived without. We are told the same things about Callie’s physical problems every time her name is mentioned, and yet, despite their apparently debilitating effects, they never stop her when she wants to beat up someone much larger than herself or climb over a fence or in some other way channel Superwoman – heroin must be a miracle drug! Slaughter incorporates Covid, so we get masking and social distancing thrown at us constantly, as if we haven’t all heard enough about that in real life already. The whole book could have been cut by at least a third simply by removing the worst of the repetitions. If she had also removed the foul language and the loving instructional handbook on how to get the most out of drug abuse, I reckon she could have lost another hundred pages. Take out the graphic descriptions of rape and violence and we’re down to novella length…

Nope, not for me, though since she has a massive following I don’t expect that will bother her too much. If you haven’t already gathered, trigger warnings for just about everything you can think of and several things you probably can’t. But, on the upside, nothing bad happens to the cat.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, HarperCollins.

Wow! I got to say, Karin Slaughter's standalone thrillers are shaping up to my absolute favourites. This one was particularly strong, though you do have to have a strong stomach to get through it! It's absolutely not for the faint hearted. I also enjoyed that the vast majority of the plot takes place during the Covid-19 pandemic, without making Covid one of the main topics. Rather, Coronavirus is the thing, a constant in the background, a way of life. Just the way things truly are even now in 2021. I've been nervous about too many novelists taking advantage of the pandemic and making it impossible to escape it even in literary form, however, Slaughter did an incredible job tying it in seemlessly.

The book features many topics that will make pretty much anyone (I would hope) deeply uncomfortable. It was a very difficult read. However, as a frequent reader of Slaughter's thrillers, I've come to expect a level of violence and gore that would shock anyone less familiar... but even then, this was something else.

The plot moves quickly and is very gripping. The characters are deeply flawed and feel like real people, rather than the caricatures that unfortunately often feature in crime fiction. It was hard to root for the protagonist on occasion, as the decisions that were made are just so unfathomable and moralistically wrong. But that's what makes for such a compelling novel. I can't wait to see what Karin Slaughter is cooking up next!

Thanks @netgalley for allowing me to read this book
I did find this book a little difficult to get into at the beginning but once I did work out the main characters I needed I was ok
It follows the life of Leigh and Callie Colliers lives their mother had been of little use and so they had to look after themselves, Leigh found a babysitter job for a couple Linda and Buddy who had one son Andrew but Buddy wanted more than a babysitter as Leigh found out but she soon pushed him off and he didn’t touch her again. But what Leigh hadn’t realised was Callie then took over babysitting
Years later Leigh is a lawyer and to her shock a client is brought to her asking for her to represent him it’s Andrew leigh is confused she has no idea who he is but he quickly reminds her to her horror that he knows the secret she holds with her sister
But Leigh knows Andrew is probably guilty of the rapes and murder what does she do ? Does she get him off so she can stay free? Or does she hand herself into the police confess and then tell them Andrew has raped the women
A complex story of lives intertwined with each other

Another masterful offering from Karin Slaughter. Beautifully constructed and written and confirmation that this author remains at the top of her game. Whilst the subject matter is suitably graphic the treatment is considered and a welcome change from the overeheated, sensationalist approach of lesser writers.

Consistently exciting and with enough twists and turns to keep the tension ratcheted up to the conclusion another superb offering from an outstanding writer. Recommended.

Karin Slaughter is one of my favorite authors, and once again she doesn't disappoint. I was entertained by this book and couldn't wait to finish it, and see how everything were twisted together. Recommended.

Now I do love a dark and gory read and Karin Slaughter gets it spot on every time.

I haven't actually read a KS book for a good few years, the last ones I read all centred around Sara Linton so it was nice to have different characters as centre stage this time.

This was a really fast paced, thrilling read that is graphically gory (it may actually be too gory for some).

One thing I've loved throughout all of this authors works is the 'imperfect' characters, they truly come to life with all their faults and quirks which is how real life and real people should be.

The themes and topics can be hard to read but KS is never afraid to explore the realness of such hard hitting subjects and covers them expertly!

Huge thanks to netgalley and HarperCollins UK for the ARC.

I love Karin Slaughter’s books and always look forward to a new one. False Witness doesn’t disappoint. The protagonist sisters are both likeable and engaging in different ways. The villain is vile and manipulative. The story is tightly woven and high energy whilst also being clever.

Another success from this author.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc in return for an honest and fair review.

This was a very dark and gory book. Not something I would usually read (and could only read in the daytime because I’m a wuss).

A very well written book about sisters who had a terrible childhood with a dreadful Mother.

A terrible story set in current times.

This is the first Karin Slaughter book that I have read for many years. The ones I have read before were dealing with Sara Linton. I can remember enjoying these books but also remember them being very dark.

This one is no exception. It deals with two sisters, Callie, and Leigh, who share a terrible secret. Both were abused as teenagers by the same man, Buddie Waleski, whilst they were babysitting his 10-year-old son Trevor. Leigh had one experience with Buddy but had pushed it to the back of her mind and not told her younger sister Callie when she passed on the babysitting duties to her. Callie was systematically abused until one night she cracks and stabs Walter in self-defence. She phones Callie who rushes over and together they kill him, chop him up and dispose of his body.

Many years have passed but the two sisters’ lives are dramatically different. Callie is a junkie working in a vet’s and stealing the drugs she needs. Leigh however is now a defence attorney and very successful. She is married with a daughter, Maddy, who is the apple of her eye. However, despite loving her husband very much she is separated from him because she cannot rid herself of her memories and is unable to unburden herself from her guilt, at the way her sister’s life has unravelled.

This story begins when Leigh is given a high-profile case which could enhance her reputation but the man, she is defending from rape charges, Andrew Tenant, makes it clear that he knows about her past. Leigh is torn between trying to defend someone guilty but wanting him to be sent to prison to ensure her past does not come back to haunt her or defending him successfully to gain promotion in a very competitive environment.

The actual story is fast-paced and terrifying but sometimes it is just too graphic for my taste and although I wanted to know the outcome it was not an easy read for me. The other major problem for me is that the author has written this in the present day so has to base everything around Covid and the restrictions placed upon us all. Although I can understand why she may have felt compelled to be true to the current situation I did not enjoy all the references that unfortunately we are all aware of.

I feel that this could be a recurrent problem for contemporary authors as they will have a choice of including the pandemic or writing a story and pretending it is not happening. I prefer the second option, after all this book is fiction and I am sure I would have enjoyed, if that is the right word for so dark a story, it more if it had ignored covid altogether.

Dexter

Elite Book Group received a copy of the book to review

Thanks net galley and Karin Slaughter for this book.
Could not put it down and kept reading on and off all day and at night.
It was gory and sadistic but so well written you could overlook the bad parts.
The story is based around two sisters, they had a terrible mother and a very hard childhood.
When they were both used by a man they were babysitting for it caused them both to go off the rails until they decided to pay him back.
What they did caused more terrible things to happen to,them.
Wonderful book, can I start reading it again.

This was a great read ! My only criticism is that it was way too long and could probably be at least a third shorter. The first third of the book I found my mind wandering a bit as everything seemed so drawn out unnecessarily. However, half way through the book the storyline took off and I just couldn’t stop reading it ! I would’ve given 5 stars if it wasn’t so drawn out .

Nail-bitingly gripping thriller with countless twists and turns. Difficult to put down as the tension is constant!

Yet another winning book from the pen of this brilliant author. I’ve loved all of her books, Cop Town being my favourite.

This was a great read. It’s got everything going for it. A great plot, imperfect characters, a pace that keeps you reading and darn good storytelling.

Karin often uses real-world scenarios and moral issues for her readers to absorb and ponder. This is no exception. Highly recommended reading!

I’m finally catching up with everything and this is one of the books that I enjoyed this year. I might be a bit biased as I love everything that the author has written and I’ve read almost all of her back list catalogue over the years.
I enjoyed the story and how everything comes together in the end. As usual, she creates a very atmospheric settings with some very interesting characters and twist that are mostly unpredictable because while I thought I knew where this is going, I haven’t seen some of the turns to be honest.
My only complaint is that maybe we get a bug too much burn out about this pandemic and while it’s a very important part of the story, I would rather forget about it in my fiction reads because it’s hard dealing with it in my day by day life anyway.

To sum it up, False witness is another great story from a must read author!



Arc review from the publisher through NetGalley

This book is far too long and self indulgent. No lessons to be learned, no depth of character.. Nothing endearing.

Karin Slaughter is always a reliable writer - you know you're going to get a good thriller from her.

This one had some darker themes which made me a little uncomfortable at times, but was still a good read. Referencing Covid in the book made it a bit too realistic maybe but I imagine it's something we'll see more and more in books going forward.

I do like a good thriller from Karin slaughter.
The only problem is when you enjoy reading the books you read them so quick and then you have to wait and when you get the book you read so quickly it’s the waiting game again!
These books are so worth the wait and addictive storyline I really enjoyed this one.