Where the sky came apart with my guilt-stricken heart: FALSE WITNESS.

False Witness by Karin Slaughter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Leigh Coulton has a normal life on the surface: job as an attorney, a well-adjusted daughter, a civil relationship with her ex-husband. But in Leigh's past is a terrible childhood, with a neglectful mother and lots of buried secrets. The only one who truly knows Leigh is her younger sister, Callie, a drug addict whom she rarely sees. When a case lands on her desk--a high-profile one that could make or break her career--Leigh realizes it's no coincidence why the accused man asked for her as his attorney. He knows about her past and the secrets she's worked so hard to remain hidden. And if she can't get this monster acquitted, he'll ruin everything she's tried so hard to forget and keep buried.

Wow, so Karin Slaughter's stand-alones are typically dark, but this one takes it to a whole new level. This book is brutal and horrifying. It's filled with descriptions of drug addiction, sexual assault, rape, and murder--if you cannot handle detailed depictions of these things, skip this one.

Still, at it's core, this is a love story about two sisters, so damaged by their past that they are barely hanging on, and it's really well-done. It's a rough read, but an intricate one, and Slaughter crafts Leigh and Callie so well that you become quite attached to them (even if I wanted to shake Leigh on multiple occasions for her bad decisions--ironic, since Callie is the supposed drug addict and screw up).

The "bad guy" in this book is so terrible, so hideous, it's almost hard to read at times. Slaughter has created a true beast. This book is not for the faint of heart in any way. You pretty much learn who he is from the beginning, and the book revolves around whether Leigh and Callie will be able to stop him and recover their lives. The point of view goes back and forth between Leigh and Callie and also skips between past and present. I'm not sure how it all works, but it does, and the result is a total page-turner. The pandemic factors in, but only tangentially.

This is a harsh read, but a completely suspenseful one. There's a lot about family under all the horror, and the entire book is quite well-written. If you don't mind a really (really) dark read, it's very good. 4+ stars.

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