Joe's Reviews > False Witness

Looking for novels set during the pandemic, I picked up my first Karin Slaughter book. Published in 2021, False Witness is strictly a research read and in full disclosure, I skimmed a great deal of this so I could finish it in one afternoon. That said, I was more impressed with Slaughter's mechanics than I thought I'd be and liked enough of this novel to give it a qualified positive rating, rather than back out of the room with my hands up.

The plot involves defense attorney Harleigh "Leigh" Collier being called up to the major leagues to defend a very white and very wealthy young man accused of a brutal rape and assault. Plot twist: Leigh's client, Andrew Trevor Tennant, was the boy she and her sister Callie used to babysit before they murdered his piece-of-shit pedophile mob enforcer adulterer daddy in 1998. Andrew knows what Leigh did and intends to use it as leverage in her defense.

Karin Slaughter is known for setting her amp to 11. Her prologue unravels in a series of shocking escalations: Domestic abuse victim is actually the babysitter, the babysitter is only 14, the victim discovers her abuser has been videotaping their sex acts, the victim is then beaten to a pulp, the victim then slices her abuser's femoral artery open with a butcher knife. And that's just the half of it.

This business bypasses "lurid," starts at "stagy" and gradually works its way through various levels of "ridiculous." But having read much of False Witness, I can't say it's unsophisticated. Slaughter balances her A-storyline, the courtroom plot of an attorney in trouble, with a terrific B-storyline in which the attorney's sister, a junkie living from one score to the next, gets involved in protecting her family and putting the antagonist away.

I would've preferred a gritty noir focusing on the junkie, Callie. She's by far the most compelling character and didn't need any ginned-up childhood trauma to be so. A former cheerleader suffering from neck injuries sustained as a teen, Callie is a devoted animal lover, and Slaughter (with her research team) plot out a very sophisticated criminal scheme in which Callie scores dope through her work assisting an old veterinarian. I perked up whenever Callie came around.

As for what Slaughter wrote, she deserves props for creating two siblings who work together. Despite living vastly different lives, as close to The Prince and the Pauper as Slaughter could get, there are no lengthy scenes of Leigh and Callie arguing or litigating their childhoods. They support each other and when the family is threatened, unite quickly instead of bickering for seventy-five pages.

My major dislike here are the male characters. This is where cranking everything up to 11 goes wrong. Not only are the men in this novel bad, they're biblically vile. The only vaguely human male character is Leigh's ex-husband, who Slaughter states is a good father but despite being on friendly terms with his ex and later a major part of the plot, divorced Leigh (bad guy!). Never mind that nearly 70% of divorces are filed by women, Slaughter can't let that get in the way of painting men very poorly.

I jotted down nine notes concerning criminal justice in the time of Covid and want to thank Slaughter and her research team for providing me this expert-level information for the price of a library card. The novel is very long and very well-researched. I prefer my thrillers moody, atmospheric, down and dirty, but was surprised how sophisticated False Witness is. I cannot say I was bored. Haunted houses, if nothing else, aren't boring.

Estimated word count: 127,160 words

Adaptations: None. The Karin Slaughter novel that has been adapted to film or TV so far is Pieces of Her, which snared Toni Collette in its twisty, violent grasp as a Netflix movie in 2022.

Thanks for reading: If you love dining at Medieval Times, or any themed restaurant where your waiter is in costume and entertainment like a jousting tournament takes place, Karin Slaughter might be for you.