Fourth of July, everyone is watching the fireworks. Except two teenage girls who disappear, leaving behind a broken phone and a puddle of blood.
Twelve years later, another girl has gone missing under similar circumstances. Emmy is determined to find whoever is taking these girls and make them pay.

This was such a great book. We find out what happens to the first two girls about halfway through the book and I wasn't sure where the story could go. But the twists didn't stop coming and I was shocked by the ending. I couldn’t put this one down. I was gripped throughout.
Please check the TWs for this one as while it doesn't go into graphic detail, it does mention abuse towards young girls, torture and sexual abuse.

I have read a number of books by Karin Slaughter so I was excited to read this one. It had me hooked straight away and had so many twists and turns. It’s described as book one so hope this is the start of a new series and we can see how Emmy and the other characters develop. Loved it. Yet another one that would make a great series on tv

This is my third Karin Slaughter read and has firmly cemented her place in my list of favourite thriller writers.
Emmy grew up in this community and when two young girls go missing, as deputy sheriff, she’s determined to find them. Piling on the pressure is the fact that one of them is the step daughter of her best friend, Hannah. But as the hours tick past, the girls’ chances of survival diminish, and Emmy struggles to come to terms with the consequences of her own behaviour in the minutes before one of the girls disappeared.
The events of that evening and subsequent fall-out have long-term repercussions. When another young girl goes missing over a decade later in a copy-cat crime, Emmy finds herself second-guessing the original investigation.
Adding to her unease, her estranged sister returns as an esteemed FBI agent to help with the case. Tensions rise further, and family secrets threaten to undermine everything Emmy thinks she knows.
This was an excellent, fast-paced, twisty thriller, but do check the trigger warnings, as it deals with some uncomfortable topics. An easy five stars from me.
Big thanks to @NetGalley and @HarperCollinsUK for the chance to read an ARC. We Are All Guilty Here released on 19 June.

We Are All Guilty Here is Karin Slaughter's 25th novel and a first in the North Falls series.

When two teenage girls disappear during a 4th of July fireworks display, Officer Emmy Clifton is tasked with finding the girls. She is personally invested in the case since one of them is her best friend's daughter. But as Emmy delves deeper into the girls' lives she realises she never truly knew the girls and the town is hiding darker truths than she ever thought possible.

@karinslaughterauthor does it again. This time the plot isn't overly graphic but twisted enough to keep me on edge. She weaves a complex, gritty story yet again with compelling characters and masterfully blends them with great family drama. In true Karin Slaughter fashion, she dives into dark themes but handles them with compassion. Emmy is flawed, brave and resolute but also vulnerable adding depth to her character and making her incredibly relatable.

With long chapters and meticulous attention to detail with regards to police procedural and
small-town politics, Karin keeps up the suspense which is unsettling yet riveting. By the finale, the twists come fast and they are brutal.

We Are All Guilty Here is a solid introduction to and perfectly sets the stage for yet another long running series (I hope). Can't wait for book 2.

Thank you @harpercollinsuk and @netgalley for the digital ARC to read and review.

Karin Slaughter never misses, and We Are All Guilty Here is yet another sharp, gripping read from her that pulled me in from page one. There’s something about the way she layers tension and emotion that just works because you’re never reading passively, you’re fully in it. This one feels darker and more emotionally complex, and I loved how it opens up a new series while still carrying the tight storytelling she’s known for.

This time, she takes us to North Falls, a small town with a dark undercurrent, where two teenage girls vanish during a Fourth of July celebration. From the very first chapter, the atmosphere is tense and unsettling, and it never lets up.

Slaughter’s writing is sharp and cinematic, and the pacing is masterfully done. The narrative moves between present day and flashbacks, slowly revealing the rot that’s been growing in North Falls. It’s not just about a missing person case, it’s about power, complicity, and the cost of silence. Every reveal lands hard, and by the time the full picture comes into focus, it’s both devastating and deeply satisfying.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first book in the North Falls series by Karin Slaughter. She is an auto buy author for me and I have loved both Grant County series and Will Trent series (and she has promised there will be more books for this one).

I can imagine it is always daunting to start something new when you already have a great series established and people have a tendency to compare but I have fallen in love with this book and I can’t wait for the series to continue.

The character development was fantastic. Emmy was the main FC and I loved the relationship she had with her dad. I enjoyed reading about their thought processes into analysing a case and how she later used this technique with her son and Jude. I even loved Jude, who came across as emotionless and difficult to understand but by the end you could sympathise with her actions. The Clifton family dynamic will be an entertaining cast.

The writing was so vivid that I felt myself immersed in the story and unable to put the book down. I cried at least five times. There were so many shocking revelations that had me picking my jaw off the floor. So many secrets in one place.

I will be adding two new words to my vocabulary as well - shittifyingly and voluntold. Both had me in stitches.

Action packed and gripping!

Introducing Emmy Clifton in the first of a new series from Karin Slaughter. North Falls is a small town where everyone appears knows everyone else. It’s the evening of the 4th July, most of the residents are eagerly awaiting the celebratory fireworks. Two teenage girls vanish, apparently without trace. Emmy had shunned one of the girls that evening when she asked for help, now she is struggling with guilt. What if she had taken the time to listen? Would things have turned out differently?

Emmy is a brilliant character, flawed and struggling with regrets at past decisions, she will stop at nothing to find the missing girls and return them to their families. There are so many twists and turns in this compelling, clever and riveting mystery. An unexpected dual timeline adds to the intrigue and suspense. Eventually the secrets this small town is keeping are revealed in an unexpected and shocking conclusion. Is anyone wholly innocent, or must everyone take some blame, however slight?

This is storytelling at its marvellous best. Cancel life, curl up with a cuppa and be ready to become mesmerized by this nail biting cliffhanger.

With so many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, HarperFiction for my advance reader copy in return for my honest and unbiased review

North Falls a small town where everyone knows everything or do they. Two girls go missing and suddenly the town doesn't seem so safe or so quiet. Emmy Clifton saw one of the girls before and brushed her off, now she has to face that regret and find the truth.

A new series by a favourite author of mine so was really looking forward to it. As usual Karin Slaughter does not disappoint. This was a brilliant first in the series with all new characters. The plot was detailed and interesting. Definitely not for the faint hearted. The author really goes dark and deep in these but it works and keeps the reader hooked. The ending was clever and I enjoyed the twists along the way. I also wasn't sure of the killers identity until near the end which I love. The characters are interesting and it was certainly an explosive first look at them all. No simple background to this. I really liked Emmy though. She goes through a lot but keeps going for the sake of the families she's trying to help. A brilliant beginning and I look forward to more.

I am never disappointed with a story from Karin Slaughter. Queen of suspense and thrills, this is another book full of twists and turns and tension, so much tension, I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding!

The central characters of Gerald (Chief of police) and his deputy Emmy are so engaging to read. Gerald is teaching Emmy everything he can so that she can lead the team and further her police career when they are called out to the potential abduction of two girls who live in their close-knit town. You follow the case as they race against the clock to bring the girls home and the perpetrator to justice. Several times I fell for the breadcrumbs left for me into a false lead and the climatic outcome halfway through the book made me think, hang on what happens next!!! The second stage of the story finds time has moved on and a similar crime occurs in their town of North Falls and Emmy makes it her mission to get to the root of the evil once and for all. The story tackles dark themes of rape, domestic abuse, kidnap and torture.

It's pacey, it's full of twists and turns, the tension builds like a rollercoaster and at it's heart is a tale of love and loss and how you will do everything you can to protect those that you love the most. I guessed one outcome about halfway but that did not detract me from the story at all. Highly recommend

My dad has been trying to get me to read Karin Slaughter for years and I've been missing out

Hooked from the start, didn't see the twists coming and this was SO tense I felt sick. I thought the ending could've been better, I'm not sure where the rest of the series will go

This book is set in the town of North Falls in Georgia.

Emmy Lou Clifton is the daughter of the local sheriff, Gerald. She followed in his father’s footsteps and became a police officer.

During July the Fourth celebrations, two teenage girls, Madison Dalrymple and Cheyenne Baker, go missing, their bikes abandoned, with blood found on the scene.

Emmy immediately suspects foul play. As the investigation progresses, she discovers things about the two girls and the secrets they’ve been keeping.

Then, their bodies are found in a nearby pond. Emmy and Gerald quickly apprehend the killer, and the case is closed.

Or so they thought.

Fast forward twelve years, and the killer is released on parole. Another local teenage girl, Paisley Walker, goes missing.

A retired FBI agent, Jude Archer, arrives in North Falls and helps with the investigation. She quickly assumes that Emmy and Gerald caught the wrong person…

I love Karin Slaughter’s books, and this one didn’t disappoint.

It’s the first book in the North Falls series, and the author perfectly describes the feel of the small town: everyone knows your business, and you can’t really hide. However, saying that the abductor of the two missing girls got away with it for twelve years.

I really got into the new characters, especially the dynamic between Emmy and Jude. The revelation at the end was fantastic.

I can’t wait for book two! Many thanks to HarperCollins for approving my NetGalley request.

I just absolutely love Karin Slaughter.

We Are All Guilty Here, did not disappoint. There are some pretty horrific parts in the book but I think that’s the norm with Slaughters books.

I hope we don’t have to wait too long for the next book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the chance to review this book.

It’s been a while since I read a novel by Karin Slaughter and boy, was I glad I read this one! It’s a story that typically punches above its weight, layered and complex with as many twists and turns as a baby piglets tail!

Usually, as a seasoned crime thriller reader, I can see twists coming at least a little in advance but while I saw the first one, I simply didn’t see the rest, not even the one with many clues!!

The action takes place in the small town community of North Falls, where Sheriff Gerald Clifton and his daughter Deputy Sheriff Emmy Lou keep the peace. The whole town has been run by Clifton’s and named after Clifton’s forever. Bring a Clifton is both easy and very hard and Emmy Lou’s family have lost two of their children in tragic circumstances already.

Two teenagers are abducted and one is the step daughter of Emmy Lou’s best friend Hannah.
The abduction and circumstances around it have implications for Emmy Lou’s life well beyond the tragic outcome and reverberates for many years.

The book takes place in two time frames - the second 12 years later when another teenager is abducted just hours after the release from jail of the person convicted for the previous abductions - released after a podcast showed he couldn’t have done it.

Events take a tragic twist for the Clifton’s and in steps Jude Archer, working with the FBI recovering abducted children do their parents have an outcome. Turns out Jude Archer is actually a Clifton herself….

This is a great story by a master crafter of crime thrillers, it’s layered and complex, with much resting on the small town relationships, families and secrets. The original girls abducted were clearly holding secrets from their strict parents and it looks like the latest abducted girl has very controlling parents - is that what connects them? And if it wasn’t the guy convicted, who was it? And why strike again just hours after he comes out of jail?

I can’t recommend this book highly enough, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I’m sure you will too.

I was delighted to receive a copy of Karin Slaughter’s latest book and excited that it is a new crime thriller series.

It did not disappoint and I found myself totally hooked and caught up in the story.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #HarperColllinsUK for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Karin Slaughter never fails to be the best ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the first instalment of a new detective series and already the characters are so deep and powerful!

The story is based in a small town with lots of mystery and close relationships get pushed to the wire. The twists come thick and fast and the story just gets better and better either way each chapter.

It’s a very emotional, deep story, I loved it.

I love a Karin Slaughter story but I found that the way the book ended wasn't great. It just seemed to end without suspense.
It also felt like it took a while to get into even though two girls are murdered right at the start.

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

Brilliant, brilliant debut for a new series. I have loved all Karin Slaughters books whether they be stand alone or The Grant County series. This is a sure fire start to a new series that could be just as good as Grant.

North Falls is a small town where everyone know everyone and everyone looks out for each other. Emmy Clifton is the deputy to her father as chief of police and is North Falls born and bred. Although the Cliftons built the town from scratch all those years ago so with all the history comes a great many secrets.

When to local girls go missing, in what proves to be a harrowing case, Emmy and her father and the rest of the PD are happy they have arrested, charged and imprisoned the correct man. After being released 12 years later with new evidence and a dubious podcast emotions are running high and when another teenager goes missing it is the touchpaper the town needed. Did they have the right man 12 years ago or has someone else been playing them all along?

A fantastic 5 stars.

An edge of your seat, cant put it down thriller! Emmy is the deputy in a small town. So when two teenage girls goes missing, it falls on her to solve the case. It's now many years later and the case is resurrected when the convicted is released from prison and girls begin to go missing again. Its a very different Emmy who needs to solve this crime now (or maybe its the same crime), the years have not been kind and there is a lot of baggage.

It felt like two books melded into one. The beginning felt a bit slow, but it starts to make sense and you realise what a marathon this book is, with many twists and turns and unexpected developments. Some great complex characters, each uniquely carved and you get drawn into the larger family saga. So many layers to this book, many ways to keep you completely absorbed.

I don’t just read a Karin Slaughter book, I devour it. I have read every fiction book she’s written and recently had the wonderful opportunity of hearing her speak at Capital Crime with Mark Billingham. After 25 years of writing crime fiction thrillers, it’s remarkable that Slaughter shows no signs of tiring, and North Falls is the start of a brand new series, with characters that make my heart sing.

North Falls is a small South Georgia town, run by the Clifton Family who have influential positions in pretty much every aspect of the town’s business and legal life. Emmy is the Deputy Chief in the Sherriff’s office; her father is the Chief. The small-town setting of North Falls is beautifully drawn. Slaughter lets us peer behind the curtains of small town life so that we can see both the charm of the town and how well its neighbours know each other’s business, while at the same time showing us how claustrophobic that can be, especially for restless teenagers desperate to find out more about life than North Falls can offer. There’s a suffocating intimacy here that breeds suspicion, especially when a terrible catastrophe unfolds. North Falls is Slaughter’s canvas for Gothic shadows—it’s hot, humid summers breeding secrets in quiet backyards. This is classic Slaughter: small‑town charm colliding with darkness.

From the first fireworks-lit night in North Falls, I was utterly hooked. Narrated in the first person, this is not a dry police procedural; it's Emmy Clifton’s story—raw, flawed, tense, and emotionally drenched.

Emmy Clifton is haunted by her failure—she ignored a cry for help from her best friend’s daughter and it is her guilt as much as anything that drives her obsessive search when two teenagers vanish. Her relationship with her father, Sheriff Gerald Clifton, and the extended Clifton clan anchors the story in a palpable sense of small-town saga. This family binds the community together, but also blinds them to each other’s hidden depths. There's warmth and dysfunction in equal measure, and the way people tiptoe around secrets shows how peppered North Falls is with collective guilt—hence the title.

We Are All Guilty Here opens explosively, two teenage girls disappear as the town comes together to watch the holiday fireworks and from there the focus is on Emmy Clifton, her family dynamics and how she sets about peeling back the lives of the vanished girls, looking at motives, and trying to pin down the town’s shady characters.

As Emmy digs deep into the girls’ lives and the secrets they keep, showing us how little we know about the people closest to us. The teenage girls had lives of their own, woven with desire, deception, vulnerability. This is a recurring theme throughout the book, and brings out some of Emmy’s own deeply personal troubles, showing us that although she is resolute and brave, she also has a deeply vulnerable side to her character.

Slaughter doesn’t shy away from exploring the murky waters of guilt, betrayal, and the hidden lives of teenagers. Her characterisation shines through; these are real people, layered, complex and replete with their own secrets.

This is a dual timeline story; the novel has two major arcs.  First is the disappearance of the two girls and the discovery of what happened to them; second, is the disappearance, twelve years later, of another young girl, Paisley Walker. Here, Slaughter introduces a new character, Jade Archer. A former FBI criminal psychologist wangles her way into this new case. The dynamic between Jade and Emmy positively crackles. Emmy is local, emotionally entangled; Jade brings an outsider’s scepticism and polished methodology. It’s a classic but addictive tension: hometown instinct versus professional detachment. By the time they reluctantly collaborate, you feel the stakes in every analysis and accusation they volley at each other. Once Jade enters the picture, the pace, which has been methodical and determined, picks up to a breathless sprint.

By the finale, plot twists come fast and they are brutal. There are red herrings galore, a revelation, a conviction, the re-emergence of dangerous locals, even an early shootout—just enough to keep your heart hammering. The pace is fast and furious and the shocks keep coming.

Verdict: This is a novel about guilt, memory, and small town secrets. Emmy Clifton emerges as a heroine forged in regret and resilience. Jade Chandler’s measured expertise lifts the stakes. And North Falls becomes a character in its own right—its beauty tainted by tremors of betrayal.

Slaughter has delivered a rich, layered novel with superb plotting and emotional depth. If you love character-driven crime laced with gut‑punch suspense, this series opener is a knockout. I can’t wait to see where Emmy and Jade go next.

A rip-roaring start to a brand new series by much beloved best-selling author, Karin Slaughter. The title gives the nod to the central theme of this crime thriller – although we purport to know each other in small towns, how much do we really know? And do we care enough?
This is a typical Slaughter read – tightly plotted, fast and furious, characters with real depth, unexpected twists - and then twists to the twists, as well as a satisfying, unexpected ending.
Recommended!