1.41k reviews for:

The Silent Wife

Karin Slaughter

4.17 AVERAGE


A convicted pedophile convinces the GBI to reopen his case, telling them that his conviction was the result of a conspiracy by the Grant County police, led by Sara's former husband, Jeffrey. The story takes place in Grant County at the time of the original murders, and today, where more victims with a similar M.O. are appearing throughout Georgia.

Gripping as always. My one gripe would be that I saw this one coming fairly early on.

3 1/2
adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Via audiobook . The end of this book had me melting omg

mrsdrawoo's review

5.0

Karin Slaughter is back with a bang. The latest offering in the Sarah Linton/Will Trent series is possibly the best. Featuring characters past and present it ties a number of previous stories together whilst unravelling a dark, disturbing case at the same time.

Upfront honesty…

I borrowed this book from the library not realizing it was part of a long series. I know I missed a lot of nuance as a result, so I added an extra star in an attempt to be fair.

Spoilers ahead!

Minor Spoilers ahead!

For an example, the book goes back-and-forth between past and present, and I did not care for much of the past. I didn’t care about Jeffery. He cheated on his wife. She divorced him. The present shows that they married again and he was killed. Then one of his last scenes (in the past, of course) shows him still lying with the hope of getting back together with her. That’s sick!

We also have various people hating on present day Lena for covering up her mistakes only to read a scene where past day Lena is being ordered to lie to get in a house by Jeffery. However, his actions are presented as correct.

Then Lena makes a mistake, and he lies to cover it up, and now she’s hated for what the still respected and loved Jeffery taught her.

What?

Was he supposed to be likable because all I got out of this book was that he’s an asshole, a corrupted cop who corrupted another cop, and that he probably deserved to die. Given current events, I want to be clear that this doesn’t reflect my opinion on real cops. Their personal lives are their personal lives. Anything else should handled should be within the law. Jeffery is fictional (obviously). I just don’t know if Jeffery was badly written or if the readers are supposed to dislike him.

Finally...

Major Spoilers Ahead

The title of the book is what got my attention. It’s what kept me going when I was getting bored, but it had nothing to do with the story. A couple of times, it’s named dropped in a very clunky manner.

Then we get to the killer and...

Spoilers (no names, but still major spoilers)

...it’s a minor character I forgot about.

Again, this probably would have mattered more if I read the whole series. Maybe there were hints throughout that pointed to him being a killer, leading to an exciting build up where he’s finally caught! I don’t know. Within the book itself though, it kind of came out of no where and I had to go back to see who he was.

Oh yeah... That guy...

Okay then. That was dull.

Karin ALWAYS slays
dark mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

I love this series but I really need Lena to have some consequences for her actions. Every time I read a book with her in it I'm like



by the end.