She Treads Softly: After That Night

Thursday, August 24, 2023

After That Night

After That Night by Karin Slaughter
8/22/23; 432 pages
HarperCollins
Will Trent Series #11

After That Night by Karin Slaughter by Karin Slaughter is a very highly recommended, excellent, thriller and police procedural. This eleventh novel in the Will Trent Series is an absolutely must read thriller! One of the best of the year!

A current court case takes GBI investigator Will Trent and Dr. Sara Linton back fifteen years ago to a violent attack that changed her life. Three years previously, Sara encounters a young woman in the ER , Dani Cooper, who was brutally attacked and raped. The case is in trial right now and Sara, now a medical examiner at the GBI, is testifying at the civil trial of the young man believed to be responsible. Sara knew the parents of the defendant years ago and the mother hints in an odd way that this case is connected to other assaults. This confession sends Will, Sara, and Will's partner Faith on an off-the-books investigation into several cases that share a resemblance to each other.

Karin Slaughter is a must read and at the top of her game. After That Night is an exceptionally well-written procedural/thriller. The narrative is riveting, detailed, compassionate, and moves at a fast pace. The plot is engrossing and disturbing as Will, Sara, and Faith piece together connections between young women who were targeted and raped. The assaults all lead back to a group of men who were medical students at the same time as Sara. The details are gritty and horrifying as more is information uncovered. The final denouement is shocking.

Those following the series will know the characters intimately and gain more insight into them but new-comers will be as engaged with the characters as seasoned fans. They all are fully-realized characters that will prompt compassion and interest throughout the whole novel with all readers. Although this is the eleventh in the series, it can be read as a stand-alone novel.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins via Edelweiss.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.