Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - False Witness

This was my first Karin Slaughter novel. It started out a bit meh — felt a bit forced and several of the descriptions and adjectives seemed repetitive. After getting through the first part the plot began to come together and didn’t seem as forced. The timeliness of the book — set during Covid — was also interesting.

Fast paced, good character and plot development. Challenging themes.

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kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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heyitsmichellehamm's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book gave me so many feelings. It was such a wild ride and even now at the end, I'm not sure how to feel.

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jayneyh314's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Despite not having the most conventional upbringing, Leigh and Callie were good people, trying to make changes to their lives for the better until one night, over 20 years ago, they did something terrible and everything changed.

Now a successful Lawyer trying to get through the pandemic, Leigh has buried what happened deep inside her until she gets a new client pushed on her at short notice and he knows things about that night, all those years ago, that he shouldn’t. Can Leigh and Callie save themselves from this new threat and what will it cost them this time?

“False Witness” is due to be published on 24 June by Harper Collins and I was given a free e-arc via NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.

I’m pretty new to the work of Karin Slaughter but the few of her books that I have read, I’ve really enjoyed so I was very excited to be approved for the e-arc of “False Witness” and I wasn’t disappointed.

Initially, I was surprised by the pandemic setting. It’s not integral to the plot so isn’t mentioned in the official synopsis of the book but I felt like it grounded the plot in current times and I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

Slaughter’s characterisation is excellent and she deals sensitively but realistically with Callie’s struggles with addiction. I really related to Leigh and the way she portrayed herself as quite tough but deep down had a really sensitive side and would do absolutely anything for her family.

As you would expect with a book of this genre there were plenty of twists along the way and although I did predict a couple of them there were some absolute jaw dropping moments too.

I really enjoy Slaughter’s writing style, “False Witness” is fast paced and kept me absolutely gripped from beginning to end. There’s a comment that Callie makes towards the end of the book that reminded me of the timeframe that we had been dealing with and there is definitely a lot of action packed into quite a short space of time.

Slaughter’s writing always feels very realistic to me. It’s a fictional story but I’m sure there are people who are brought up in exactly the way Leigh and Callie were. Andrew Tennant is also one of the creepiest villains I’ve come across in a while, precisely because he’s so realistic. Give me a clown down a storm drain and I won’t even flinch but violent misogynists are truly terrifying.

I would say this book should come with trigger warnings for rape, paedophilia, murder, addiction, drug taking, PTSD and violence (mostly against women). Whilst Slaughter doesn’t glorify any of these actions and is no more graphic than she needs to be some passages could be quite triggering for some people and, as I’ve said above, the realism of her writing that is one of the things I love would make these passages especially triggering.

I honestly couldn’t find a single fault with this book and as long as you take into account the trigger warnings above I would highly recommend to any lovers of the thriller genre.

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tashm's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A much anticipated Slaughter stand-alone that kept me well and truly hooked. Leigh is a sassy defence attorney who gets a request to represent a high profile client accused of rape. She's read about him in the paper and can't understand why he would request her, until she walks into the conference room for the first time and realises that she knows him very well. And he knows an awful lot about her.

Leigh and her sister Callie (endearingly short for Calliope but pronounced Callie-ope as their mother didn't understand how it was supposed to be pronounced) have been running from their past for a long time and are brilliant characters. Leigh is outwardly poised and powerful but actually incredibly vulnerable. Callie has coped with the assistance of opiates and a myriad of other drugs (CW: in addition to the usual Slaughter violence, there are graphic descriptions of intravenous drug use - I'm not squeamish but in the last chapter there was a scene that even made me grit my teeth!).

I am a huge fan of Slaughter's writing and really enjoyed this. I felt for the characters, particularly Callie, and adored her relationship with Dr Jerry. It wasn't quite as twisty and turny as some of her books are but there was a few solid surprises thrown in. It was more an exploration of what you would do to protect the people you love and the morality of decisions you make. It's also set in current time, so is full of references to masks, Covid-19 and the impact of that on the community/country.

All in all an excellent thriller - not my favourite of hers but a brilliant read that made me abandon all other reading plans!

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