Karin Slaughter is one of my favorite mystery writers. She is a master of thrilling psychological stories with complex characters and dramatic plots, and I was so excited to read her latest novel, We Are All Guilty Here.
In the small town of North Falls, Georgia, two fifteen-year-old girls vanish at the town’s Fourth of July celebration, sending the town into a frantic search. Emmy Clifton, determined and fueled by guilt, will stop at nothing to find these two girls and figure out who took them.
One of the girls is the daughter of Emmy’s best friend, a kid she thought she knew well. But these teenagers are keeping secrets, and North Falls has a dark side that makes even an experienced cop’s skin crawl.
Every time Emmy thinks she has it all figured out, new secrets and suspects rear their ugly heads. With Karin Slaughter’s trademark, stomach-churning portrayal of the darkest evil of human nature, the town of North Falls is rocked by what really happened to these girls.
We Are All Guilty Here features dimensional, authentic characters, all of whom, including the protagonist, make awful mistakes throughout the events of the book. These detrimental moves make every single character in this book, good and evil, alarmingly human.
This is a dramatic mystery, yes, but it’s also a realistic portrait of the best and worst of humanity, including the tortured and tragic dynamics of high school, as well as an exploration of families and communities as they reckon with grief and pain.
While the plot, perspective, and genre are obviously fundamentally different, I was reminded of Jennifer’s Body while reading this book.
Hell is a teenage girl.
The story jumps right in and keeps moving, with perfect pacing. I’m partial to a mystery that really moves. Right when I thought it was going to slow down, a whole new twist came, and it picked right back up again.
This story has an anylitical, psychological, law enforcement-centered perspective. Like most mysteries, there are red herrings throughout, some more convincing than others. The mystery at the core of We Are All Guilty Here is quite layered. It seems so simple at first, and that’s the beauty in the way this story evolved.
The ending of this book was complex; not without sadness and surprises, but it had a bittersweet tone as well. It was a perfect conclusion to a tense and tangled thriller. We Are All Guilty Here is the first in a series, and I look forward to reading what’s next for the community of North Falls.
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