Book Review: The Silent Wife by Karin Slaughter. The latest Will Trent/Sara Linton novel

Available here

Sometimes it's great to find two novels from a favourite author that you've managed to miss and then read them almost back to back and that's exactly what I did with The Last Widow and The Silent Wife by Karin Slaughter. These two books follow on from each other but couldn't be more different in terms of plot. Once more Slaughter has managed to not only produce a fantastic thriller, but she's ramped up the tension between Will and Sara in a very clever way ... but more about that in a bit. For now, here's the blurb.

The Blurb

He watches.

A woman runs alone in the woods. She convinces herself she has no reason to be afraid, but she’s wrong. A predator is stalking the women of Grant County. He lingers in the shadows, until the time is just right to snatch his victim.

He waits.

A decade later, the case has been closed. The killer is behind bars. But then another young woman is brutally attacked and left for dead, and the MO is identical.

He takes.

Although the original trail has gone cold – memories have faded, witnesses have disappeared – agent Will Trent and forensic pathologist Sara Linton must re-open the cold case. But the clock is ticking, and the killer is determined to find his perfect silent wife….

My Thoughts

The Silent Wife  kicks off with a prison riot that Sara, Will and the team have to investigate. During the investigation a witness claims to have been wrongly blamed for raping two women almost a decade previously. The thing is there is some credibility to his claims and everything becomes very personal to Will and Sara when they realise that Sara was involved in the examination at the time. With claims that the killer/rapist is still out there this is a race against time to find the real killer. 

The thing is, not only was Sara involved in the original investigation, but so was her deceased husband Jeffrey Tolliver. This case jams a huge divide between Sara and Will, which serves to both move the plot along and to have the reader routing for them to sort things out. 

The plot is told over two timelines showing the Grant County investigation of the inital crimes and the current investigation to determine whether there is a serial rapist/killer out there and how many victims have been missed over the years. This works really well and I enjoyed going back in time to a younger, different sara Linton. 

The ongoing investigation is complex and Slaughter manages to throw in a series of brilliant red herrings. I found myself chopping and changing my mind as to who the perpetrator was and although I had at one point considered the actual killer, I quickly dismissed him. 

The subject matter is raw and emotional. This is not an easy read, but it is an important one and until men stop raping women  then it will contiue to be so. Slaughter skillfully engages the reader with the experiences of the rape victims in a sensitive, yet realistic way. She doesn't smooth over the damage or the struggle facing the vicitms, but rather through different victims experiences shows us that raped women respond in very different ways. Her focus is on the victims throughout, with scenes where the investigators react and discuss what has happened. 

Although never over the top, there are some scenes that made my heart bleed at the inhumanity people subject others to. 

This was a brave, strong and heart wrenching read ... but I wouldn't have missed reading for the world. 5 Stars!

Author Bio

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 nineteen novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar-nominated COP TOWN and the instant NEW YORK TIMES bestselling novels PRETTY GIRLS, THE GOOD DAUGHTER, and PIECES OF HER. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project--a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, Karin Slaughter lives in Atlanta. Her standalone novels PIECES OF HER, THE GOOD DAUGHTER, and COP TOWN are in development for film and television.