Random Things Tours - The Silent Wife

TITLE: The Silent Wife (Will Trent #10)
AUTHOR: Karin Slaughter
PUBLISHER: HarperCollins
PUBLISHING DATE: June 23, 2020

FROM GOODREADS: 

Atlanta, Georgia. Present day. A young woman is brutally attacked and left for dead. The police investigate but the trail goes cold. Until a chance assignment takes GBI investigator Will Trent to the state penitentiary, and to a prisoner who says he recognizes the MO. The attack looks identical to the one he was accused of eight years earlier. The prisoner’s always insisted that he was innocent, and now he’s sure he has proof. The killer is still out there. 

As Will digs into both crimes it becomes clear that he must solve the original case in order to reach the truth. Yet nearly a decade has passed—time for memories to fade, witnesses to vanish, evidence to disappear. And now he needs medical examiner Sara Linton to help him hunt down a ruthless murderer. But when the past and present collide, everything Will values is at stake . . . 

MY THOUGHTS: I've only read two other thrillers by Karin Slaughter but I'm going to be honest.  I found both of them to be some of the darkest, suspenseful thrillers I've ever read.  So when I had a chance to be a part of this tour, I knew I wanted to participate.  Also, I'll add that even though I have not read any of the other Will Trent novels, it did not diminish my understanding or enjoyment of The Silent Wife.

Eight years ago a man was imprisoned for a brutal and ruthless murder.  Daryl Nesbitt has always claimed his innocence and now a victim has surfaced under similar condition.  Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent takes on the new case and in doing so, may finally uncover what really happened eight years ago.  He teams up with medical examiner Sara Linton, who also has a stake in what happened eight years ago.  There is a possibility her now deceased husband was a corrupt cop responsible for imprisoning an innocent man.

This book is full of all kinds of twists and turns.  There is also plenty of tension and suspense.  Slaughter definitely has a way with words and is a master at creating dark and atmospheric reads. In The Silent Wife she has created a killer who doesn't care who they hurt or what havoc they wreck.  In fact, they seem to get pleasure from it. 

I also really enjoyed the alternating past and present timelines.  It's a trope that almost always increases my enjoyment of a book.  I love the relationship between Will and Sara and was anxious to see if it could be held together throughout the developments of the investigation.

I hope to go back and start this series from the beginning one day.  I'm sure there were characters and references in this book which I missed out on having not read the previous installments.  However, I definitely didn't miss out on much else.  Both old and new fans of Slaughter will surely be singing high praises to this book for months to come.


RATING: 4 PAWS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed storytellers. Published in 120 countries with more than 35 million copies sold across the globe, her 19 novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar-nominated Cop Town and the instant Sunday Times bestselling novels Pretty Girls, The Good Daughter, and Pieces of Her.

The Good Daughter and Cop Town are in development for film and television and Pieces of Her is soon to be an eight-part Netflix adaptation, directed by Lesli Linka Glatter (Mad Men), and produced by Charlotte Stoudt (Homeland) and Bruna Papandrea (Big Little Lies).

Karin is the founder of the Save the Libraries project- a non-profit organisation established to support libraries and library programming.  She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.