False Witness: A Novel

Estranged sisters Callie and Leigh, whose lives went in completely different directions, are forced together again when an event from their difficult teenage years surfaces. Forced to reunite, they must put aside their differences to combat a current and dangerous threat.

Readers should be aware and could be turned off, that this book is set during the pandemic with many references to masks, vaccines, and social distancing but Slaughter discusses her choices in the afterword. That being said, False Witness is socially relevant, gripping, heartbreaking with the creep factor dialed way up. As Slaughter fans know, she is not one to shy away from sensitive and disturbing topics and this book has a lot of them: pedophilia, parental neglect, grooming, and addiction, just to name a few.

Slaughter’s latest stand-alone could very well be one of your favorite books of 2021. False Witness is not a page-turning thriller, that is the police on the trail of a serial killer, but it delivers on so many levels – from the gut-punch of the first chapter through to the heartbreaking last page – this is, Slaughter at her very best.