Your worst nightmare begins when two teenagers go missing. Slaughter goes deep into emotions and the past connections of the victims and the family around them, the guilt of why the deaths impact everybody

This is a great start to the new series and I can’t wait for the next book. Five from me

My favourite Karin Slaughter book yet! So brilliant, so compelling, so tense! The suspense builds and builds until the breathless conclusion. Utterly enthralling from start to finish.

This gripping police procedural weaves a tale of tragedy that envelops several families in North Falls. Secrets lurk around every corner, and the weight of trauma, lies, and loss hangs heavily over the community. It seems that the residents of North Falls truly don't know their neighbours after all. They are good at fooling their neighbours by wearing masks to hide their true selves.

As the plot unfolds, characters grapple with profound loss, while others seek the redemptive power of forgiveness. Each page is infused with raw tension and heartache, pushing the boundaries of grief. Yet, amidst the sorrow, a powerful undercurrent of courage, resilience, and love shines through. This story is not just about anguish; it’s also a testament to the human spirit's strength in the face of adversity.

Karin Slaughter's stories have a remarkable ability to dive beyond the surface, drawing readers into the depths of human depravity. In her latest book, she confronts us with the ugly truths of the world, showcasing the full spectrum of humanity's darker side. Once again, Slaughter delivers a gripping and gut-wrenching narrative that will undoubtedly leave readers reeling long after they’ve turned the final page. I highly recommend!

Thank you, NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

4.5 stars
This is the first book in a new series, and it is excellent! Two teenagers go missing during a local fireworks display and Officer Emmy Clifton-Lang blames herself. She brushed off one of the girls, her best friend's daughter, because she was dealing with problems in her marriage, but when she looked for her a few minutes later, Madison was gone. The search for Madison and Cheyenne continues and then flash-forwards twelve years later when another teen has gone missing. The Cliftons are a law enforcement family, so Emmy isn't alone in the investigation. A retired FBI agent, an expert in missing children, offers her services and that is a whole other story!

This is an intense and suspenseful story with lots of red herrings and surprising plot twists. I enjoyed getting to know Emmy as well as Agent Jude Archer and the investigations definitely held my attention. Be aware that the story includes the grooming and exploitation of minors, so some of it is tough to read. I liked the book, though, and was shocked by the secrets that are revealed at the end of the story. One especially sets up a potentially tricky situation in the next book, and I look forward to watching things unfold in the future.

I received an advance review copy of the ebook from NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, but my review is voluntary and unbiased.

Karin Slaughter’s writing style can surprise you in many ways. You’re drawn into the story almost instantly—and you won’t be able to put it down until the very last page. Her descriptive writing is brilliant. She knows how to turn a quiet moment into something huge, like a snowball gaining speed and weight as it rolls forward. Once it starts, you’re locked in.

The story follows Emily, the daughter of a small-town sheriff, who finds herself caught in the middle of a complex and unsettling investigation. When a shocking event disrupts the community, Emily is pulled deeper into the case—not just to uncover the truth, but to prove her own worth to those around her. She’s determined to show that she’s more than just the sheriff’s daughter, that she has strength and insight of her own.

As the plot unfolds, you uncover the truth step by step with Emily. The investigation is filled with layers of tension, and every new piece of information brings up more questions. The deeper she digs, the more she starts to unravel long-buried secrets that change everything—for her, and for the town.

What makes this book stand out is how real it feels. The leads they follow, the dark corners of human nature, the emotional weight of each revelation—it’s gritty, intense, and painfully honest. You’ll feel the guilt, the regret, the judgment of others, the emotional weight of every choice made—and sometimes, even a little hope. It’s a rollercoaster from start to finish.

We Are All Guilty is, in my opinion, Karin Slaughter’s best book to date. It kept me hooked all the way through. I’m already looking forward to her next release—I know she’ll manage to surprise me again.

This book is a must-read for any thriller fan, and for readers who want something deeper than just a quick mystery. It’s powerful, emotional, and absolutely worth your time.

Emmy Clifford is deputy sheriff in the small town of North Falls Georgia, where everybody knows everybody and half the town is named after or owned by her extended family. At the annual 4th July celebration, the whole town is out drinking and BBQing when 2 children go missing and all the evidence points to a kidnapping. The town rushes to find them as the clock ticks down and hope starts to fade. Fast forward to a few years later and the person who was caught for the abductions has been released following a public appeal. The problem is that another child quickly disappears in very similar circumstances. Could it be a repeat offender or is it a copycat? Did they convict the wrong person?

This book is dark at times, as you'd probably expect from a story with multiple child abductions. However it does get particularly dark as it discusses child torture, murder and paedophilia at length in places. But when the confessions come and the details make your skin crawl, it's a sign of how well written the characters are. The majority of the big twists aren't predictable until the very last second and so you're kept guessing for most of the book whilst still being lead along by all the strands of the mystery. The ending was a little less explosive than it could've been, but its a decent thriller, that isn't quite as disturbing as other Karin Slaughter novels and sets it up nicely for a more twists and turns in any follow up book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this.
You can't love them all and I didn't love this one

The first in a new series by Karin Slaughter. Emmy Lou Clifton is a Deputy in Clifton County. When two teenage girls go missing at a 4th July firework gathering, it is a race against time to find them. Twelve years later, another girl disappears in a similar way - can Emmy solve the cases?

I really enjoyed this book, it was fast paced and well written as expected from a must read author for me. I liked the characters of Emmy and Jude, I can't wait to see how their relationship develops in future books. Lots of twists and turns in the story, I saw one coming (I had my suspicions from the start!), but another had me gasping 0ut loud!

This was a tense read a tense and twisty small-town thriller where secrets run deep. Overall a dark and gripping read.

This is a heartbreaking story which stretches over two periods of investigation more than a decade apart.
Alongside a distressing missing teenagers investigation is the relationship between Emmy, Deputy Sheriff and Gerald, Sheriff who are daughter and father. They have a good relationship. Emmy has a best friend Hannah it is her step daughter Madison who is missing with her friend Cheyenne. Some things change as a result of Emmy’s actions on the night the girls go missing.
Twelve years later we are with Emmy and her father still law enforcement in North Falls when, as a result of a podcast campaign, they hear the devastating news that a prisoner is being released. Could they really have been wrong?
Then another girl goes missing! Citizens of North Falls are incensed. Emmy and her father call for the crowd to disperse when a man shoots Gerald!
This story of how a small town deals with grief, loss and suffering. Of what happens after someone who has for years been considered the heinous perpetrator of a violent crime but then is released. Were they really wrong all those years ago? Will they find this missing girl?
They have to go right back to the beginning.
Jude is a federal agent she is retiring after years of bringing home youngsters to their families. It’s gruelling work, times are changing and it’s time for her to go. Then she hears about the North Falls incident and feels there is one last case she might be useful in doing what she is so good at doing. It’s also North Falls and time she went back.
Emmy and Jude make for an interesting and incredible duo to investigate. They have personal issues but they are both good at what they do. What they find out will be mind blowing. How they prove it brings them into dangerous situations.
A story of secrets and the fallout from finding out the truth which is a compelling, thrilling and irresistible read.
Karin Slaughter simply seems to get better with every new book and We Are All Guilty Here is no exception. It’s the first in a new series which I am looking forward to reading and seeing just where it goes. We Are All Guilty Here does stand on its own so I am hoping indeed expecting an exploration of the characters, at least the main ones – Emmy and Jude – with as always more excellent storytelling. I hope I’m right because I very much liked these two characters and there certainly seems to be plenty more to be said about them, their relationship, the missing years and what happens going forward. This is certainly a book well worth reading.
Janet - LoveBooks, ReadBooks logo
Thanks
Huge thanks to HarperCollins for providing an eCopy of We Are All Guilty Here via NetGalley in order for me to read and share my thoughts on.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this jaw dropping book

omg this book was so good i didnt want to put it down or even go to work... but i had to do both of those things...

north falls sounds like a place to be with all your aunts uncles and all their families.... but its a town with secrets....

when the two girls go missing the town is in uproar.....

and emmy an officer of the law will make the one mistake in her life that she will regret for the rest of her life.... and will ruin her childhood friendship in the bargain....

the shocking conclusion and the events that lead up to it are just jaw dropping i couldnt get enough of this book, one of the best books i have read in a long time.... what a ride...

looking forward to the next book by this amazing author

Karin Slaughter is one of my go-to authors. You know the ones, those who you don't even read the blurb before pouncing straight on any new book published! So you can imagine my delight when I see she has started a new series set in North Falls, a small town, dominated by one family, where everyone knows everything about everyone's business.
Until, that is, two teenage girls vanish during the 4th July firework display. Officer Emmy Clifton blames herself as she actually pushed one of them away when she wanted to talk to her, having needed a moment to herself after another set-to with her husband.
But the story doesn't stop there. As you will find out, and not from me! You'll have to read the book. Suffice to say that there is a heck of a lot going on herein. In a story spanning over a decade, uncovering a whole bunch of secrets and lies and delivering more than a few shocks and surprises along the way. It was definitely the book that kept on giving!
It's a relatively slow burner at times, and I have to say also a bit heavy on description on occasion which also slows it down further but, the pacing really does fit with the story being told. The descriptions add to the story rather than distracting from it. And there really is a lot going on both within and outwith the crimes being investigated. There's a lot of family drama included too!
Characters are, as always, extremely well described and all develop well as the story progresses. There are quite a few of them but each has its own clear voice so they are well easily differentiated. Especially Emmy who I really took to from the off. Boy does she have a lot on her plate, and she is somewhat flawed, but that just adds to her realness and humanity. So much so that I really can't wait to see how the author develops both her and the rest of the town as the series progresses.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Sometimes you read a book that is so good, you can’t stop reading it, but you also don’t want to reach the end. This book, the first in a new series (hurray!) I totally inhabited, living alongside Emmy, Gerald and the Cliftons. I am not discussing the plot as I do not want to mistakenly hint at anything and spoil anyone’s enjoyment of this superbly layered, fascinating story.

Karin Slaughter has written beautifully flawed human beings, each with their hidden secrets and life coping strategies, each trying to get on with their lives, despite all of this.

North Falls provides both a perfect and tragic backdrop for the hurricane of events that befalls the small town, events so terrible and so damaging it threatens to blow the community apart.

Set mostly across two timelines, 12 years apart, told mainly from Emmy’s point of view, I was totally engrossed in how the lives of the folks unfolded following the girls disappearance one Fourth of July. The long reaching consequences of a small, seemingly inconsequential action and the emotional turmoil people bury.

I found the criminal psychology aspect particularly fascinating, profiling crimes and possible suspects.

The Clifton family is superbly surprising, critical, humorous, cutting, exacting and yet supportive.

This is a master storyteller at her very best, I wanted to put my life on hold so I could read on! I totally loved this - and now I am bereft!

This was such an addictive and emotional ride from start to finish. Set in the small town of North Falls, the story follows Emmy Clifton, a local cop, whose life is turned upside down when her best friend’s stepdaughter goes missing. The characters are so well developed, it felt like I really knew them, especially Emmy and her family. I loved the twist halfway through when the story jumps twelve years forward and everything changes.
The mystery kept me guessing and the psychological side of the investigation added so much depth. Slaughter does a great job balancing action with character development, and the plot twists were shocking but believable. The way the past and present collide was very clever. This is a gripping thriller with secrets, lies, and unexpected turns. If you enjoy small town mysteries with strong female leads and suspense, this book is definitely worth reading. I can’t wait for the next one!
Very grateful to the publisher for my copy through NetGalley, opinions are my own

When two girls are abducted during the 4th of July celebrations, it's down to the Sheriff's department to find them and find the perpetrators.
Some relationships were never the same.
Twelve years later the man jailed for the crime is released and another young girl goes missing. It's on Emmy Lou, who is the Deputy Sheriff to step up and work the case with the help of the FBI.
The obvious candidate is the man who has just come out of jail, but the Emmy's spidey senses tell her that she's not seeing the full picture.
The trail she follows feels contrived and there are many red herrings, but when she gets on the right trail, people she trusted are in the firing line.
A good engrossing story.

Quite a few 'heavy' subjects touched upon in this read,superbly drawn together as usual by the author,child abuse,domestic abuse,murder,the devastation that mind and body illnesses can cause.
2 teenage children vanish one night in a small town. Who could have taken them?,surely not somebody local.
Wow a brilliant read that really twists your guts and leaves you gulping for breath right to the last page

I've been in a reading slump lately, with nothing seeming to hold my attention, but the moment I started reading We Are All Guilty Here I breathed a sigh of relief. Karin Slaughter has always been an exceptionally good writer, but some of her earlier novels have levels of brutality that are hard to read. Which is not to say that this book - or indeed any of her more recent novels - are easy reads. Dealing with the ugly, tragic sides of human nature and often with a specific focus on violence against women and girls, they can be emotional. But she is such a brilliant creator of characters, people in whom the reader utterly believes and roots for (thus making it all the harder when the characters experience the inevitable trauma).

We Are All Guilty Here was a brilliant slice of southern gothic combined with police procedural, and I very much hope it will mark the first in a series.

One night in the small town of Night Falls, two local teenage girls vanish during fireworks celebrations. One of the girls happens to be officer Emmy Clifton’s best friend’s daughter. Emmy knows she must bring her home but realises that the town holds more secrets than anyone knew.

This book is the first in a new series and from the synopsis I knew I wanted to give this a try. This was a well written and tightly plotted story, with some serious topics explored. I found that I was engaged in the story fairly early on and keen to see where it would go, however the story takes a turn about a third of the way in and from this point the pacing slows a lot and it starts to drag, feeling overly long, especially with the drawn out chapters.

There were a lot of characters to try and learn and I found that I didn’t fully form a connection with any of them. Although I had a few issues with the book, the ending makes up for some of these and came together in a clever way. Even though this wasn’t a favourite book of mine, I would still be interested to check out the second book in this series. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy in return for an honest review.

Karin Slaughter is an author often recommended for me and one I've been meaning to read for a while. And I really liked the writing, small-town setting, the Clifton family and all the twists and turns making one of the perpetrators almost impossible to predict. But I didn't enjoy the uncomfortable theme of this book which centres around missing teenage girls and paedophilia. Granted it's more police procedural than graphic, but it's still a hard read at times. Completely my fault though as I now understand that the author is known for writing hard-hitting, dark and shocking books - although apparently this one is actually lighter than some of her previous work.

I very much enjoyed We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter so was even happier when I discovered it's actually labelled North Falls #1. Slaughter does such a great job developing the characters and their lives, so it makes complete sense not to waste fabulously rounded creations on just one book. In fact, part-way through the novel it felt a bit like I was really embedded in the lives of the Clifton family and community of North Falls as if we'd been hanging out for years. It meant I was somewhat surprised when just over a third of the way through I discovered the unfolding plot (where I was happily ensconced) had been in the past and we move forward twelve years into the present.

We first meet Emmy when she's a young cop struggling with a no-hoper husband and young child. She's having a bad night when her best friend's teenage step-daughter tries to talk to her, later regretting it when the girl goes missing along with a friend. Emmy's friendship's never repaired but she and her father have taken solace in the fact that they caught the killer. Until he's released after a dozen years in jail when a new witness comes forward. He's not out for long however before another girl disappears...

The strength of this novel is in its characters. Not just Emmy, her father (the police chief) and her son (who also becomes a police officer) but also her relatives and extended family. When she moves to the present Slaughter also introduces an FBI agent (Jude) who's renowned for hunting child predators and she seems to take an unexpected interest in the latest disappearance, arriving in town to help find the missing teenager.

What I also enjoyed about this was the fact that we've got the investigation at one level—the methodical unpicking of clues and evidence—but also the psychological element, which is where Jude comes in and for the first time Emmy starts to worry she and her father got the original investigation wrong and they locked up the wrong man. It means Emmy and her team are forced to revisit the original murders. And then Slaughter takes it even further when Emmy has to consider that someone deliberately pointed the police in the wrong direction and is trying to do so again.

This was a great read. Tumultuous and page-turning and I cannot wait for the next instalment in this series. Slaughter ends it in an interestingly place for several of the characters and I'm looking forward to seeing where she takes it next.

4.5 stars

**My only grumble here is that Emmy's mother develops dementia and there a a couple of throw away lines about her as a result.... 'being as good as dead', for example - which I found a bit triggering as someone whose mother has alzheimers.

Karin Slaughter has done it again! Incredible characters, a fast paced storyline with so many twists and turns that it keeps you guessing til the end, We are all guilty here is and amazing novel and a must read.