Publication: 24th June 2021 – HarperCollins
You thought no one saw you. You were wrong.
Leigh and her sister Callie are not bad people – but one night, more than two decades ago, they did something terrible. And the result was a childhood tarnished by secrets, broken by betrayal, devastated by violence.
Years later, Leigh has pushed that night from her mind and become a successful lawyer – but when she is forced to take on a new client against her will, her world begins to spiral out of control.
Because the client knows the truth about what happened twenty-three years ago. He knows what Leigh and Callie did. And unless they stop him, he’s going to tear their lives apart …
Just because you didn’t see the witness … doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.
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False Witness is the new novel by one of my favorite authors, Karin Slaughter, set in an Atlanta right in the middle of the COVID pandemic. It is the story of two sisters with a secret that they have been keeping for twenty-five years. Neglected by their mother, Leigh and Callie have always counted on themselves and on each other. Twenty-five years ago, barely teenagers, they did something terrible that they have kept hidden until now when Leigh, a defence lawyer, is faced with a choice: defend a guilty man or risk that their secret comes to light and destroy their lives.
Even though the suspense of the story kept me on the edge of my seat, what I loved most about this story is the relationship – not always a healthy or functional – between the two sisters. Leigh and Callie have been protecting each other their whole lives. Forced to go to work when they were only eleven years old, their lives have never been easy. They took different paths – often self-destructives – but they were always there for each other when they needed it most.
I love Karin Slaughter. Her writing is addictive, her characters are flawed, very complex, and multi-layered, and her stories are gripping and intense. False Witness is not an easy or light read. It is dark, gritty, suspenseful, hard to read from the very beginning for its themes of abuse, addiction, and neglect, but it’s a story I couldn’t put it down until I reached that thrilling and incredible ending.
A huge thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for providing me with a proof of the novel.
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Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed storytellers. Published in 120 countries with more than 35 million copies sold across the globe, her 21 novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar-nominated COP TOWN and the instant NYT bestselling stand-alone novels PRETTY GIRLS, THE GOOD DAUGHTER, and PIECES OF HER. 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. Her stand-alone novel PIECES OF HER is in development with Netflix, starring Toni Collette, and the Grant County and Will Trent series are in development for television.
www.karinslaughter.com
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