Title: FALSE WITNESS
Author: Karin Slaughter
Read: August 2021
Expected publication: out now
My Rating:
Book Description:
AN ORDINARY LIFE
Leigh Coulton has worked hard to build what looks like a normal life. She has a
good job as a defence attorney, a daughter doing well in school, and even her
divorce is relatively civilised - her life is just as unremarkable as she'd
always hoped it would be.
HIDES A DEVASTATING PAST
But Leigh's ordinary life masks a childhood which was far from average... a
childhood tarnished by secrets, broken by betrayal, and finally torn apart by a
devastating act of violence.
BUT NOW THE PAST IS CATCHING UP
Then a case lands on her desk - defending a wealthy man accused of rape. It's
the highest profile case she's ever been given - a case which could transform
her career, if she wins. But when she meets the accused, she realises that it's
no coincidence that he's chosen her as his attorney. She knows him. And he
knows her. More to the point, he knows what happened twenty years ago, and why
Leigh has spent two decades running.
AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT
If she can't get him acquitted, she'll lose much more than the case. The only
person who can help her is her younger, estranged sister Calli, the last person
Leigh would ever want to ask for help. But suddenly she has no choice...
My musings:
Let me introduce my latest book hangover! Once I
have gathered up the thousand pieces of my broken heart I may be able to read
another book, but this gut wrenching story will stay in my mind for a long time
to come. It was intense!
I have always looked for Slaughter’s
books when I was in the mood for a dark, gritty thriller, but in FALSE WITNESS
she also managed to sneak past all my defences as sisters Leigh and Callie
fight a demon from their past. Not only was there murder, grit and mystery, but
the sister relationship was so astutely and tenderly portrayed that it made me
choke back tears many times. I also had to fight back an intense loathing for
some of the other characters, putting me firmly into the sisters’ corner, no
matter the dark secret that has shaped their lives. This roller coaster of
emotions defined my reading journey, because every time I thought we were in
safe waters I found that a raging waterfall was just around the corner. Talk
about an adrenaline fuelled ride!
Anyone who has read Slaughter’s
other books will know that she never shies away from the brutalities of life.
She doesn’t beat around the bush. If you are triggered by anything ugly then
this book is definitely not for you. Child abuse, paedophilia, drug addiction,
murder, blackmail, guilt, trauma – it’s all there, and more. At times, it’s so
violent and disturbing that you want to take a shower and just smell some
flowers to get the darkness out of your head. Set in the present time also
meant that Slaughter had to tackle the c-word, life in a covid world. It takes
a skilled writer to bring the pandemic into her story without making it a main
feature of the book, but here we just see people who are living with the
reality of the virus, just as we are doing on a daily basis.
I can’t really say much more without
giving anything away, except that the plot is so cleverly constructed that I
fell for each and every red herring. I made my first assumption in the opening
chapter and was promptly proven wrong, a theme that continued throughout the
whole book. Having been emotionally totally sucked into the story, these
moments winded me!
Summary:
All in all, FALSE WITNESS is the type of dark,
gritty story you have come to expect from Karin Slaughter, but it is also full
of heart. Her portrayal of the sister relationship between Leigh and Callie is
as beautiful as it is heartbreaking. As the sisters battle a dark demon from their
past, only their love and loyalty may give them a chance to get out of this
alive. It was gut wrenching, graphic and emotionally exhausting but also one of
the best thrillers I have read this year.
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