Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new edition of Lil Red’s Book Club! In a spoiler free setting, as always, we will be discussing the first book in a new series by Karin Slaughter called We Are All Guilty Here. If you are a fan of police procedurals or Law & Order SVU, then you are absolutely going to love this mystery thriller. Yes, it was very difficult to read at times but it really did feel like I was reading an episode of SVU and I couldn’t put it down to save my own life. Before we begin our chat, I will be placing a big fat trigger warning on We Are All Guilty Here for graphic physical and sexual violence involving minors, highly disturbing content, crime scene descriptions, and murder. You ready? Let’s go:
Emmy Clifton serves alongside her father in the North Falls police department. Nothing major ever really happens in their small, quiet town but there is nothing better to Emmy than working with her dad and tonight will be a busy one as they monitor the Fourth of July fireworks event. As Emmy patrols the crowds, her best friend’s daughter, Madison, approaches her. Madison looks distraught and like she needs to tell Emmy something important. This could be the perfect opportunity for Madison to open up but Emmy blows her off to find someplace to cool off as she just had an embarrassing public spat with her husband. That was the last time Emmy saw Madison.
As the night continues, Madison is nowhere to be found. Nor is her best friend, Cheyenne, who was supposed to meet up with her to enjoy the fireworks together. What the police do find, however, are the girls’ bikes abandoned in a field near the fireworks show and a lot of blood. All the while, Emmy flagellates herself for not listening to Madison when she had the chance. The police have little to go off of but they know that they are dealing with a double kidnapping which is a rarity. As their investigation proceeds, all signs point to an Adam Huntsinger and time is of the essence to get him talking.
Huntsigner doesn’t have anything to say to the cops but when the bodies of the girls are found in a location where he was seen talking with them, he finds himself on death row. For twelve years, Adam remained on death row until he was released due to DNA evidence from a prior rape giving him an alibi. Adam is free and now another teenage girl, Paisley, has gone missing. Emmy has the opportunity to make up for her past mistake with Madison if she can figure out where she went wrong with a twelve year cold case in time. Will she find Paisley alive? And even if she does, will Emmy ever be able to forgive herself? Read We Are All Guilty Here to find out!
I have to admit, it took me a while to get into We Are All Guilty Here. This is a lengthy and wordy book and it started out as a very slow burn. The first sixty pages or so were honestly painful to get through but then the slow burn accelerated to a full on fireball and didn’t let up until the very last page. As you can imagine from the rest of this post, We Are All Guilty Here included really hard subject matter to read about but Karin Slaughter handled it with such care. Our heroine, Emmy, was exactly the person the reader needed to handle the case. She was sharp as a tack, tough as nails, and had a wealth of empathy beneath her stoic exterior that radiated through the pages.
Beneath all of the bad in this book lied a truly fascinating whodoneit that was filled with twists, turns, and Red Herrings galore. We Are All Guilty Here really kept me guessing but I am pleased to report that I did figure out the grand reveal. Just call me Emmy Clifton! I am very much looking forward to seeing where this series will go next but I already know that I am one thousand percent in. Police procedural books can often read like a dryer manual. We Are All Guilty Here was an exception and I am on pins and needles for the next Emmy Clifton case!
Overall, I am going to rate We Are All Guilty Here with a nine out of ten stars. It would have received a perfect score had the initial pacing been a bit speedier!
Do you have a favorite police procedural show? What is your favorite book series? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
