I really found it interesting how Slaughter chose to include and write about covid while living in it when writing the story. It was an interesting aspect and interesting to hear her thoughts about why in the author's note.

In true Slaughter form this book was dark, twistu, distrubing, and gritty, definitely not for the faint of heart.

Karin Slaughter pulls you in with her characters both good and bad. You find small things that make you feel empathy for the antagonist. You continually question yourself throughout the whole book who the actual person to point your finger at. She makes you want to solve the mystery and guess the ending. It feels like you won the prize if you did, even when she leaves the reader clues along the way.

False Witness is an extremely contemporary novel. It deals with covid, #metoo, and generational trauma.

Two sisters must return to their past and relive a part of their lives that has shaped both of who they think they are today. Leigh is a lawyer who has a case given to her by one of the partners in her prestigious law firm. She soon enlists her estranged sister to help with the case because they both know the client. Someone who they think they would never see again. The client has a grip on Leigh and from there you will be hard pressed to put this book down.

They are some themes in this book that may be a Trauma Trigger for some readers.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for an advanced copy of this book.

Please note I am new to reviewing so please excuse any missteps on this journey and feel free to provide constructive feedback.

I wanted to like this book and thought at the beginning I would love the book. However, there were scenes that were too gruesome for me to continue reading. Trigger warnings--the description of a body being cut up with a butcher knife was so hard for me to read that I ended up DNF this book. I can not rate the book because I only read about 20%.

Every single time, Slaughter slaughters it! Whenever I need a gritty thriller, I know Karin Slaughter will deliver

The books starts with a girl named Callie who kills a man in self defence. 20yrs later that man’s son that Callie was babysitting is in trouble and demands Harleigh, Callie’s sister defends him. He plays a game of cat and mouse with the sisters.
This was a good gripping thriller keeping you on the edge of your seat the whole time

I have read almost every single one of Karin Slaughter’s books. It precisely her ability to write a story that draws you in at the beginning and makes you NEED to find out what is going on that keeps me coming back. This one had me at hello. It was a book I thought about when I wasn’t reading it and kept sneaking time to read “just a little more.”

This is a story of the past catching up to you. Leigh and Callie have a past they think no one knows about. Then Leigh, a defense lawyer, is called to a late night meeting and her client not only is a blast from the past but he knows. He is malevolent and vicious. She is tragic and strong. The characters in this story are so well done. I felt like I was in the story with them. How was this going to play out? Who would “win”? How did he know?

All of that said, I did struggle with the backdrop of covid 19. I felt like it was a bit too soon for me even though, by the author’s acknowledgement, this was done very intentionally.

Also some serious trigger warnings for drug addiction, child pornography and abuse, violence and rape.


Thanks to Harper Collins for the ARC!

MAJOR TW: rape, murder, brutality against women, physical abuse, sexual abuse of a minor
Leigh Coulton has built her life from the bottom and is now a defense attorney, co-parents her daughter, and is finding ways to cope with the pandemic. When someone from her past requests her to be his defense in his high profile rape case, secrets she long buried and compartmentalized begin to emerge--beginning with her drug-addict sister, Calli. So begins a cat-and-mouse game of blackmail and revenge for wrongs committed 20 years ago.

OK! This was a rollercoaster of a read. The prologue HOOKED me. Once again, Karin Slaughter proves why she's an instant "WANT TO READ" and instantly on my TBR. She doesn't shy away from the ravages committed against women so this is not a read for the faint-of-heart. The characters were flawed and relatable with the goal of wanting to protect each other. The pacing gets a little slow towards the middle of the book where the stakes were really high and we got smacked in the face with plot to a bit slow and then, BAM!, more plot towards the end.
4.5 rounded up to 5...a book that can make me gasp within the first 50 pages and cry in the last 50 is a good sign.

KS deftly handles difficult topics including drug use and child molestation as well as the current state of the country dealing with Covid.  This was not the crime thriller I was expecting but more of a story about screwed up people, relationships and family dynamics that are the result of childhood trauma and secrets.
Although I found the beginning a bit slow and repetitive,  it did get much better and it was an interesting read.

Thank you Netgalley for providing this book in exchange for an honest opinion. I have always loved Karin Slaughter's novels and this was no different. It was the first book that I read that actually took place during Covid. It was interesting to read giving everything we have been through. From the very beginning my attention was captured and I had to keep reading to find out what was going to happen. This book deals with some pretty terrible situations and makes it hard to read at times. It was an excellent book and definitely worth reading.

The ARC of this standalone Karin Slaughter novel came my way (via Killer Crime Club - https://www.facebook.com/KillerCrimeClub for anyone interested) just as I was starting my journey of reading through the same author's Will Trent series. The overall vibe and rhythm of False Witness felt slightly different than some of Karin Slaughter's other books but the story of Leigh Coulton and her sister Calli still took me on an emotional roller-coaster and despite the heavy subject matter, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

This book had elements of suspense, legal thriller and family drama. The author also chose not to ignore our pandemic reality as the story was meant to be taking place during the pandemic. Leigh Coulton is a no nonsense defense attorney who worked really hard to distance herself as much as possible from the realities (and memories) of her difficult (and traumatizing) past. Her sister Calli's substance use took her in a very different direction and despite their shared past two sisters lead very separate lives. That is until Leigh gets assigned a case defending a wealthy client accused of a brutal rape. What ensues is an intense game of cat and mouse which will force Leigh to reconnect with her sister and face the secrets of their shared past.

I really appreciated the slow burn pace of the story, as well as the way in which the author tackled the subject of violence against women. I feel the two were intrinsically linked. The subject matter might be triggering to some, there are some graphic scenes and overall there are quite a few "heavy" moments in the book but they are instrumental to understanding all the different ways trauma can make a person feel broken.

Grateful to NetGalley, Killer Crime Club & Harper Collins Canada for providing me with an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This standalone crime thriller is set in Atlanta, Georgia, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The author attempts to weave an incredible amount of social consciousness into the narrative and thus, at times, it reads a bit like an opinion piece. Longer than most popular fiction titles at 512 pages, this book took me a lot longer than I wanted in order to finish.

Leigh Collier is railroaded into taking a case that involves defending a wealthy man accused of rape. When she finds out who he really is, she understands exactly why she has been asked to represent him. He is no stranger. Twenty years prior, Leigh and her sister, Callie, did something that they managed to cover up but now the past has come to collect. NO SPOILERS.

Although quite predictable, this novel was dark, grisly, and full of the details that might make a delicate person a bit queasy. Neither Leigh nor Callie are likeable people and readers spend far too much time in their heads as they go over, endlessly, the same old mantras. Despite the repetition and wordiness, the events in the story move along quickly until the expected conclusion. I really didn't feel the suspense or tension and no twists delivered a gotcha moment. As stated previously, the book covers a lot of topics that permeate our current state of affairs, including heroin addiction, pedophilia, and violence against women.

In her author's note, Slaughter expresses that she relates these many issues in her book in order to elicit empathy and "a deeper understanding." She ends with a quote from Katherine Anne Porter that speaks volumes about how many of us feel as we enter yet another new stage dealing with the coronavirus, hoping that the light is there at the end of the tunnel, "Now there would be time for everything."

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this e-book ARC to read and review.

Holy crap! It's not like I don't know how amazing Karin Slaughter is--I started with Triptych and have been hooked on her books since, but False Witness is her strongest book yet! It's a standalone, and unlike most of her other books is very firmly rooted, time-wise, moving from the 1990s to the COVID pandemic.

In False Witness, there's an amazing thriller plot with at least two twists I didn't see coming, which is awesome, but was pushes the novel into Yes! You Must Read! is that it also is a gripping story about family, about what we do and are capable of doing for those we love, and a sharply astute look at addiction. And it has one of the most nuanced looks at trauma and how it shapes and affects us physically and mentally that I've read in a while.

False Witness contains something for every reader and it is an absolute must read. If you somehow missed this, you definitely should read it. Very very (very!) highly recommended.

More Karin Slaughter novels are in my future after trying her out for the first time with False Witness.
From the first chapter Slaughter has you hanging onto her every word waiting to find out what happens. The suspense is not so much focused on the events that are happening so much as wanting to know how the characters react and respond to said events. Slaughter's development of characters leaves nothing to the imagination and has you feeling the pain, angst and anxiety along with the characters Leigh and Callie.
This novel explores themes of abuse, rape, murder and addiction and opens your eyes to the endless emotions brought with these themes.
To anyone wanting a page turner that makes you connect to the characters, this may be the book for you!

What happens when a life-time of learned defenses suddenly stop working?

This is a story about revenge, misogyny, rage and the sort of evil that keeps you awake at night. But at the heart of it, this is really a story about love. About guilt. And most of all, about letting go.

“Tell her I want to hold onto her as tight as I can until she understands that I will never be healed until she is”

Leigh and Callie are thirty-something year-old sisters. One is a model of strength and success, able to face a crisis head-on, her life a series of tightly crammed boxes, ruthlessly effective in their obliterating protection. The other, is a sweetly compassionate dreamer, is caught up in endless cycles of soaring flight and gut-wrenching despair, held mercilessly hostage to the availability of her next needle.

“We both forgot because it was the only way we could survive.”

Set in a Covid-tainted world that is riddled with modern-day pandemic nuance, Callie and Leigh’s story is heartbreaking, chillingly poignant, and terrifying. As a serial rapist strikes at the heart of Atlanta’s most vulnerable, it’s impossible not feel the pull of this claustrophobic and strangely-masked world; one tell-tale sign of a crime and justice system disquietingly impacted by global epidemic.

Callie and Leigh are quickly caught up into the horrific web of crime which is now tangled with their past and tainted with their individual reactions to their deeply hidden feelings of guilt and shame.

“You can’t be sorry for something that you couldn’t control. “

The pace of the story is dark and relentless, the plotting devious and clever. I found myself unable to rest until I’d read this one through and found the ending both satisfying and emotional.

A big thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

Exciting novel all the way through. I read False Witness in record time as I couldn't put it down. The main characters dilemma made me question my own ethics and if I could actually condone her behavior. By the end I was definitely convinced that her choices were valid.
I have read most of the Will Trent series and loved them. I plan to read more of the stand alone novels now. Karin Slaughter is a master story teller that evokes emotional responses to her characters in her novels. I really loved this story.

Things I loved about False Witness(and basically all Karin Slaughter novels):
- You think your know what’s going to happen, you don’t! Slaughter always keeps you guessing, in the best way possible.
- The way she develops a character is like none other. She can make you love, desire and long for one person, feel the hurt and pain of another while teaching you to absolutely hate the next.
- Slaughter books are not meant to be “skim” read. EVERY detail she gives, and I mean EVERY DETAIL, means something. So pay attention.

I truly enjoyed every page of this novel! Slaughter captures the sibling relationship between Leigh & Callie perfectly. The Love, the hate, the fact that there is nothing they would not do to protect each other. Initially, when I finished the main book(before the epilogue) I was a little disappointed and left with questions. But of course Slaughter wrapped it up perfectly in the epilogue! From the prologue to the epilogue, this is an emotional ride.

Like all of Slaughters books, this is dark and not for the faint of heart. That being said, I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who likes a dark, tense, twisty story that might just make your own family feel normal.


Thank you to Net Galley for the FREE Advanced Readers Copy.

Defense attorney Leigh Collier is hired to defend an alleged rapist. Andrew is white, wealthy, and arrogant that he will be set free despite the overwhelming amount of evidence against him. Worst of all, it turns out that he's linked to Leigh's past, and that he may have information about a terrible secret that Leigh and her younger sister Callie have worked their entire adult lives to escape.

False Witness is the kind of thriller you wouldn't want to put down. It's tightly plotted, with compelling characters, dark secrets, and a truly heinous villain you wish would get what he deserved.

It also features wonderfully complex heroines who exist in a murky, grey zone of morality. Leigh is a tough, ambitious career woman and fiercely protective mother, and, from the surface, appears to have the perfect life. However, we learn that this perfection is hard-won, and part of it was attained due to a horrific act she did as a teenager. Whether or not her actions were justified is matter for discussion, but it definitely shows a dark side within her, that seems to only be waiting to be unleashed. 

In contrast, Callie's life seems to be falling apart. She's a drug addict with track marks visible on her arms and legs, and she steals drugs from her kind, elderly veterinarian boss, to sell for profit. But then she's also clearly very kindhearted. She engages in conversation with people living on the street who say nonsensical things, she cares for the animals at the veterinary clinic, and she's super sweet with her cat Binx. In many ways, Leigh and Callie's adult lives seem to be two sides of the same coin, and the novel drew me deep into their stories, and made me wish for them both to just be happy.

Unfortunately, their happiness is endangered by Andrew's court case, and the hints he drops at how much he knows about their pasts. As Leigh examines the evidence against him, she realizes how tough her job will be. All rape is violent, but the one in this book is especially so -- when Leigh asks if the victim was unconscious during the rape, her colleague's response was that they hoped so, given what was done to her. And when Leigh advises Andrew not to take the stand, it's easy to see why -- even on the page, Andrew gives me the creeps. The lead-up to the court case is both thrilling and maddening, and the ending takes a somewhat darker, and sadder, turn than I anticipated. Part of me wishes that the ending had been more rainbows-and-sunshine happily ever after, but mostly, I thought the ending felt right, and gave closure to the various plot threads.

I also think that False Witness may be the first novel I've read that actually talks about life during the COVID-19 era. I've read a pandemic thriller, Lost Immunity by Daniel Kalla, but that was a fictionalized pandemic in a post-COVID world. Most novels I've read recently seem to take place in a vague present-day or an alternate reality where the pandemic isn't a factor, and to be honest, during most of the past year and a half, that was exactly the kind of literary escape I wanted. 

But then False Witness begins in the spring of 2021, where Leigh and her estranged husband are at their teenage daughter's drama production, and everyone's wearing masks. There are the now-common observations about men who keep their masks dangling on their chins and how they're probably equally lax about condom use, the somewhat wistful comments about how intermission used to mean going out into the lobby to chat over snacks, and the somewhat throwaway detail about 'non-compliant' parents who refused to wear masks being given the option to watch the performance over Zoom. Leigh also makes a wry comment about how the school put on the performance over five Sunday evenings, to give all the parents a chance to attend. It's a minor joke about how that measure just took away parents' excuse to get out of having to attend, but it's also a somewhat sad reminder of how much live theatre and other similar venues have had to adapt during the pandemic.

Perhaps it's because I'm fortunate enough to be in a country where vaccinations are now easily accessed, but I actually liked these little details about pandemic life. So much of the past year and a half has been about changes to the way we live that it's almost a comfort to read about how a regular thriller, with all the usual conventions of the genre, can still play out within the restrictions of pandemic life. Slaughter even uses the pandemic to deepen the relationship between the sisters, with Leigh having contracted COVID in 2020, and feeling guilty about infecting her sister to the point that Callie still seems to sometimes have difficulty breathing. It's both a jarring reminder of how much COVID has impacted people's lives, and an oddly comforting assurance that real life does continue around and alongside the pandemic.

I don't think I'll quite go around looking for stories set in contemporary pandemic times, but, at least for this novel, Slaughter shows how to do it well.

+

Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for an egalley in exchange for an honest review.

Leigh is an attorney with a complicated life who finds herself working on a case that brings up all her horrible secrets. Her client is a mysterious creep who seems to know her past and she has to get help from the only other person who knows what happened back then, her drug addict sister Callie. Karin Slaughter is just so good at writing authentic characters and their relationships and creating a fully realized back story. Lots of twists and social commentary, just as you would expect from Slaughter. I love the Will Trent series, but I think her standalones are perhaps even better.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review.

Back with a thrilling new standalone, Slaughter does not disappoint with False Witness. Leigh Coulton is a middle of the road defense attorney which is exactly what she wants, to be looked over, until a high profile client request her by name. With ties back to her childhood and the night that drove her apart from her sister, Leigh has to dig deep in to the past and reconnect with her sister in order to save their future. Like all of Slaughter's titles, False Witness is impossible to out down with well-crafted characters and plot twists that keep you turning each page till it's the last. Following in line with her other standalones, False Witness is a bit more gritty, even on par with the graphic level of Pretty Girls (another favorite of Slaughters). The only disappointment Slaughter ever brings is not writing the next book fast enough for the rabid readers.

How far would you go to protect your sister, your husband, your daughter? Is it even your job to protect? These are questions Leigh must answer. Something horrific happened to Leigh and Callie when they were teenagers. Were they guilty of a crime or was it self defense? Leigh becomes a high powered lawyer while Callie descends to the depth of heroin addiction. Now Leigh's job is to defend the son of the man who attacked them. Separating the past from the present becomes almost impossible and then her family is threatened.
A dark read that makes you uneasy as you read but so worth it. Karen Slaughter never lets you down. A story that embraces the times of the pandemic and makes you question yourself and your beliefs. Highly recommended for fans of thrillers.