20 books for 2020–how cool is that?! The Silent Wife is Karin Slaughter’s twentieth book and the tenth installment in the Will Trent series. Slaughter is the author of both the Grant County and The Will Trent series, along with a handful of standalone novels as well. About four years ago, I was standing in an airport combing through books, searching for something to read on the flight. I came across Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter—one of her standalone novels— and I’ve been hooked on her books ever since. Karin Slaughter is one of my all-time favorite authors; everything she writes is pure gold. In addition, she’s also taken time in the past to respond to my DM’s or like one of my reviews on Goodreads; in 2018, she sent both myself and my boyfriend an advance copy of her novel Pieces of Her. So, she’s not only super talented, she’s down-to-earth, too. Needless to say, I was shook to the core when I won a Goodreads giveaway and received an advance reader’s edition of The Silent Wife.
Just for clarification, The Silent Wife is book number ten of The Will Trent series—a series that follows special agent Will Trent and others from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (the equivalent of the state police), AKA the GBI. Slaughter’s debut series—Grant County—began in 2001 and ended in 2007 with a shocking loss. I went back and forth between both series, and I was aware of what was coming in Grant County, but that didn’t ruin anything for me at all. However, if you’d prefer not learning any potential spoilers, I’d recommend reading the series first. You’ve be warned: if you want to read the Grant County series to find out what happens ahead of time, don’t go any further!
Additionally, it’s not necessary to read through The Will Trent series beforehand, either. In fact, I actually read the books out or order and it didn’t take away from my reading experience. Slaughter’s storytelling lays out the details you need to know throughout every book.
I have spent many late nights in bed with a Karin Slaughter book, desperately trying to finish a chapter, then “one more page” (as if that’s ever worked for anyone, like when people insist on only having one cookie). Last night, I stayed up past my bedtime because I simply could not put The Silent Wife down. That’s what Slaughter does—she sucks you in with her writing and keeps you in her grasp until you’ve turned the very last page.
‘The silent wife’ synopsis:
Atlanta, Georgia, present day. A young woman is brutally attacked and left for dead. The police investigate but the trail goes cold. Until a chance assignment takes GBI investigator Will Trent to the state penitentiary, and to a prisoner who says he recognizes the MO. The attack looks identical to the one he was accused of eight years earlier. The prisoner’s always insisted he’s innocent, and now he’s sure he has proof. The killer is still out there.
As Will digs into both crimes it becomes clear that he must solve the original case in order to reach the truth. Yet nearly a decade has passed—time for memories to fade, witnesses to vanish, evidence to disappear. And now he needs medical examiner Sara Linton to help him hunt down a ruthless murderer. But when the past and present collide, everything Will values is at stake…
My thoughts:
The Silent Wife is a disturbing story that will satisfy crime, police procedural, and thriller lovers everywhere. Told in both the past through Jeffrey Tolliver’s (one of the main characters in the Grant County series) POV, and in the present through the characters of Will Trent, Sara Linton, Faith Mitchell, and Amanda Wagner, Slaughter blends this story together seamlessly. Nothing about the alternating POV’s was choppy, and I loved being able to reconnect with Jeffrey.
It’s evident that Slaughter takes her time to research everything she writes about, down to the last detail. I’m always amazed at how thorough she is in her storytelling of violence and police work. It’s extremely impressive, and makes the reading experience that much more real. That being said, this story is not for the faint of heart. It is disturbing, unsettling, and violent. It’s a brutally honest and vivid way of looking at the world through a woman’s POV, and gives a glimpse into the kinds of predators that are out there. These are the stories no one wants to talk about because they would shatter everyone’s fantasy of the world being a good place. The world is not a safe, nice, and good place, and Karin Slaughter exposes that flawlessly.
What I really loved this book was the exploration of trauma and the everlasting effects it can have on someone. In a foreword from Slaughter herself, she says: “[That’s why] I decided to write frankly about violence against women. I felt it was important to openly describe what that violence actually looks like, and to explore the long-lasting effects of trauma in as realistic a way as possible.” Trauma is something that often goes ignored. It is rarely ever talked about, and it is something that everyone handles differently. There is no guideline on how people are supposed to respond to trauma, and I think that Slaughter explored this difficult topic with grace and ease. Violence against women is something that needs to be talked about, too. Much like trauma, the horrors that women have to suffer through are oftentimes ignored. Women sitting in silence and suffering is nothing new—it’s something that society expects of them. I loved how Slaughter tied in this suffering to the title, The Silent Wife. Yes, there were multiple tie-ins to this title throughout, but that was the one that stuck out most to me. Even while women were subjected to horrifying and traumatizing circumstances in this book, they were forced to do it quietly. Silence. Something the world expects of women.
Of course Slaughter’s storylines are intense and immersive, but with this book I realized what it is that really draws me into her writing time and time again: the characters. Every single character in this book feels so raw and real to me. I feel like I know them, I can conjure up what I think they look like in my mind. You become attached to and invested in every single one of them. You feel as though you’re living through the book yourself. There were times throughout my reading experience where I literally felt my heart race. Slaughter also made note of her characters in her foreword, saying: “At the very beginning of my career I made the decision that what I was writing about would matter both in each story and from one book to the next. That’s why I’ve worked hard to create characters who feel real, who fall in love, who make mistakes, who sometimes don’t make it to the end.”
I did figure out who the culprit was fairly early on, but that didn’t take away from my reading experience at all. That’s how you know an author’s truly talented—when their story is larger than the big mystery at heart shrouding it.
If you love crime thrillers and police procedurals, any of Karin Slaughter’s books are for you. I can’t recommend this book enough. Congratulations to Karin Slaughter on her twentieth book, I can’t wait to see where everyone goes go from here.
The Silent Wife will be published on August 4, 2020 in the U.S. Thank you to William Morrow and Goodreads for supplying me with an ARC for this book. All opinions are my own.
