False Witness: An Electrifying Stand-Alone Thriller

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"There's deception, sabotage, violence, family secrets . . . all the stuff you could want from a fictional page-turner."— theSkimm
He saw what you did. He knows who you are…
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Pieces of Her and The Silent Wife, an electrifying standalone psychological thriller.
AN ORDINARY LIFE…
Leigh Collier has worked hard to build what looks like a normal life. She’s an up-and-coming defense attorney at a prestigious law firm in Atlanta, would do anything for her sixteen-year-old daughter Maddy, and is managing to successfully coparent through a pandemic after an amicable separation from her husband Walter.
HIDES A DEVASTATING PAST...
But Leigh’s ordinary life masks a childhood no one should have to endure … a childhood tarnished by dark family secrets, broken by betrayal, and ultimately destroyed by a brutal act of violence.
BUT NOW THE PAST IS CATCHING UP…
On a Sunday night at her daughter’s school play, she gets a call from one of the firm's partners who wants Leigh to come on board to defend a wealthy man accused of multiple counts of rape. Though wary of the case, it becomes apparent she doesn't have much choice if she wants to keep her job. They're scheduled to go to trial in one week. When she meets the accused face-to-face, she realizes in a moment of chilling suspense that it’s no coincidence that he’s specifically asked for her to represent him. She knows him. And he knows her. More to the point, he may know what happened over twenty years ago, and why Leigh has spent two decades avoiding her past.
AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT.
Suddenly she has a lot more to lose than this case as she's pulled into a dangerous game of blackmail. The only person who can help is her younger, estranged sister Callie—the last person Leigh would ever want to drag into this after all they’ve been through. But with the life-shattering truth in danger of being revealed, she has no choice...
“A high-stakes thriller . . . Her heroines are believable, flawed and courageous.” –OYINKAN BRAITHWAITE
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Community Reviews
What Bookclubbers are saying about this book
✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say this stand-alone thriller delivers gripping twists, relatable (often deeply damaged) characters, and Slaughter’s signature blunt, sometime...
This is the third Karin Slaughter book I’ve read and enjoyed. Slaughter definitely has a way of telling a good thriller. Her style can be a bit gruesome and descriptive with the crime scenes, something that I’ve noticed with all her books that I’ve read. Not really a fan of those types of scenes and will sometimes just skim over those parts when they become a bit too much for me.
The subject matter of this particular story was actually worse than some of Slaughter's gruesome descriptions: pedophilia and rape. As I mentioned, some sections were hard for me to read. From almost the moment that one particular character was introduced early in the story, I knew that the ending for them would not be an easy one to read. I wasn't wrong.
This was truly a psychological thriller with it's psychologically damaged main characters going in and out of their distorted senses of reality and mental breaks caused by the abuses of their related childhoods. For me, the ending was a little bit of a tear jerker - partly from the sadness of the results for some characters and maybe even a little from the relief of finally reaching the end for other characters.
As an author, I like Slaughter, she's a good writer and storyteller. However, it may be awhile before I read another one of her books.
The subject matter of this particular story was actually worse than some of Slaughter's gruesome descriptions: pedophilia and rape. As I mentioned, some sections were hard for me to read. From almost the moment that one particular character was introduced early in the story, I knew that the ending for them would not be an easy one to read. I wasn't wrong.
This was truly a psychological thriller with it's psychologically damaged main characters going in and out of their distorted senses of reality and mental breaks caused by the abuses of their related childhoods. For me, the ending was a little bit of a tear jerker - partly from the sadness of the results for some characters and maybe even a little from the relief of finally reaching the end for other characters.
As an author, I like Slaughter, she's a good writer and storyteller. However, it may be awhile before I read another one of her books.
Excellent, fast paced. Current
Gruesome and shocking quite violent and disturbing
4.5
Hard book to put down or imagine happy endings.
Karin Slaughter is a master of gripping twists, relatable characters and showcasing issues that we can only hope never touch our own lives because we know they happen to others.
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