The hardest decision when reading a Karin Slaughter book is whether to stay up all night to finish it or to pause after each chapter to absorb and reflect on what you've just read. Her latest Will Trent book, After That Night, certainly presents that dilemma.
Sara Linton is on call in the ER at Grady Memorial Hospital when a girl, Dani, comes in after a brutal attack. Sara makes a promise to the girl that she will stop the man who'd done this to her. As Sara's fiance, GBI investigator Will Trent and Will's partner Faith investigate, it appears there is a link between the assault and Sara's rape 15 years earlier. To keep her promise, she's going to have to dredge up memories of the worst thing that's ever happened to her.

It turns out that the car that Dani was driving belongs to the son of one of Sara's med school colleagues from 15 years ago. As both a doctor and the only witness to Dani's dying declaration, Sara is the star witness in the civil trial against him. When the boy's mother, Britt McAllister, confronts Sara in the restroom, Britt tells her that what happened to Dani is linked to a mixer that they all attended on the night of Sara's rape. Now it's up to Sara, Will, and Faith to discover the connection and determine which of Sara's fellow med school colleagues is responsible.

The trio discovers what they describe as a "Rape Club", which is even more horrible and despicable than it sounds. The first emotional impact is reading about the devastating impact that rape has on its victims and the course of their lives. The second impact is realizing that it happens all the time. Slaughter describes these events in unflinching detail and with a great deal of compassion. The characters all feel like real, complicated people. The ability to understand and sometimes relate to them draws your admiration, your sympathy, and your revulsion respectively. The effect on the investigators investigating these crimes is its own sort of devastation.

Will and Faith do a great deal of the leg work without official sanction of the GBI. Since the crimes range back as far as 15 years, hard evidence is in short supply and they know they'll need a strong case before the investigation will be approved. The people being investigated have the resources to make problems go away. Given Sara's relationship with them, she is integral to the investigation. The mystery comes together piece by hard-won piece. When you think you've plumbed the depths of depravity and cruel indifference, Slaughter still has more surprises in store.

After That Night is an intense page-turner and one of the best books of the year. This is a must-read for any fan of thrillers and suspense novels. Slaughter is as good as they come.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

Slaughter is one of my favorite writers and this was a slam dunk. I loved getting back into Will, Faith and Sara’s world. This was a dark one and had some spine tingling moments. Could you read this as a standalone? Probably but you’ll be missing tons of backstory. If you love a police procedural with some thrills than you really need to start this series!

This is book #11 in the Will Trent Series but can be read as standalone as well. This story has some triggers in it regarding sexual abuse so just a warning.

I absolutely love Will, Sara and Faith! In this book they work together to link pieces from a case of assaults' that caused a young girl to die. 15 years prior Sara faced a brutal attack of her own shattering her life and working hard to rebuild it. With this new case it has come to light that Sara's case is connected somehow. Along the way it is discovered that more and more cases are connected and it all traces back to a crew that Sara used to hang around in college. Digging deep into her past the crew works together to find the similar links to make sure this ring of attackers is stopped once and for all. Fast paced page turner that I highly recommend!

Thank you to Netgalley, publishers and amazing Karin Slaughter for my ARC!

After That Night is the eleventh book in Karin Slaughter's Will Trent series. The book follows Sara Linton, a medical examiner, and Will Trent, a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, as they investigate the brutal assault and death of a young woman. The case soon takes on a personal dimension for Sara, as she realizes that the victim was attacked in the same way that she was fifteen years ago.

Slaughter's writing is as taut and suspenseful as ever in After That Night. She does not shy away from the brutality of the crime, but she also writes with compassion for the victims and their loved ones. The book is also notable for its exploration of the long-term impact of sexual assault on survivors.


The characters are well-developed and relatable. Sara and Will are complex individuals who are struggling with their own personal demons. The supporting cast is also well-drawn, and the reader comes to care about them as the story progresses.
The plot is fast-paced and suspenseful. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing, and the ending is satisfying.
The book deals with some difficult subject matter, but it is handled with sensitivity and respect. Slaughter does not exploit the victims of sexual assault, but she does show the devastating impact that these crimes can have on survivors.

After That Night is a well-written and thought-provoking novel that will stay with you. I highly recommend it to fans of Karin Slaughter and to anyone who enjoys a good thriller. Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for the chance to review this advance copy. After That Night is available for purchase everywhere you buy books now!

Embrace the darkness.

When you pick up After That Night, you have to be willing to go deep and dark. Karin Slaughter takes us through intense emotional devastation, and she makes sure we FEEL it.

The plot is layered, complex, brutal, and real. Events unfold slowly at first, setting the stage, letting unease settle in.

When the investigation takes off, we’re tossed around in the maelstrom. My brain almost imploded at that final revelation, which is horrific and undeniably brilliant.

You won’t escape this story unscathed.

*Thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for the eARC.*

This was a tough read, but I expect nothing less by this point from Slaughter. Super gritty and triggering but also real and very 'ripped from the headlines'. The only thing that makes me feel better about reading this is knowing that justice is always served. I needed that, after this one.

Karin Slaughter writes immersive, intriguing thrillers with very dark themes, yet the well-written nature of her books keeps the reader going. This was my introduction to Will Trent, a member of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and his friends as they investigate a young woman's death after reporting her rape. As Will, Sara, Faith and more dig deeper and deeper into that night, they find tentacles leading back to events fifteen years back in Sara's past and even more.

Dark and disturbing as the subject matter is, the book was so good. The relationships between the characters, the way they worked through the difficulties in investigating the crimes, and the realism in their reactions all add to the enjoyment for the reader. Slaughter is on top of her game as a thriller/mystery author.

Okay, tears in check. Jaw off the ground. Heart rate back to normal. Mind still going a million miles an hour. This book sent me! It had me from the starting gate and I could not put it down. This is my first Will Trent novel and I need to go back and read the rest of this series. The characters are masterfully written. You want to know about their lives and how it has shaped the person they have become. There are some truly horrifying characters in this book. Who you will want to punch in the face. It is fast paced, sit on the edge of your seat, sweat inducing read. And nothing is at it seems.

Sara appears to have her life under control. She is in the field she wants to be in and is successful. She has a fiancé who is her everything and friends that understand her and she can lean on. One night when she is on call a young woman is brought in who has been beaten and raped. Sara is immediately transported back in time to the night she was raped. The pain and anguish never going away. Sara promised this girl she would catch the man who did it. She never thought the leads would bring her back to her own college days…

This book can be hard to read at times, due to the subject matter. If you can make it through with tears rolling down your eyes, the story is profound and disturbing. How can people treat other people in this way? It always amazes me. Thank you to Karen Slaughter and William Morrow for this intense read. I am off to add the other books to my wishlist!

Getting an early copy of this book has gone to my head, I'll admit it. But the love I have for the Will Trent series runs deep so reading "After That Night" was part of my 2023 bucket list. YES, I'm that extra when it comes to this cast of characters and this author's writing.

Will, Sara, Faith, Amanda, and even Betty the dog are back in "After Taht Night". In this next installment, Sara is giving testimony for a recent patient that came through Grady ER. What unfolds is how that patient is tied to what happened to Sara years ago, the actions that left her unable to have children, handcuffed to a bathroom stall. As the team works undercover, they discover that Sara's attack is tied to many more victims. Sara has to peel back the parts of her life she's kept tucked away, trusting Will and Faith to help bring justice to not only her case but to the other victims as well.

In true Karin Slaughter fashion, this book will take readers on a wild ride. In an expected twist, I found myself crying over Will and Amanda's relationship. How this is possible with each of Will's books, I'll never know. KS knows how to create a world with her writing that is completely immersive, both mentally and emotionally.

Karin Slaughter has done it again with another page turning rendition of the Will Trent series. One of my favorite things about this series is the ability to read some of the books as stand-alones. This was number 11 in the series and having not read all of them I was still able to easily follow along with the story. I was kept guessing and entertained until the very end. The perfect recipe for a good thriller.

Some of this author's books are so great. But I think picking this one up in the middle of the series without having read anymore was a mistake. I felt a little lost in the information.

Karin Slaughter is one of my favorite authors and she has done it again!

Slaughter is not one to shy away from heavy topics and After That Night is no different. Will, Faith, and Sara find themselves unofficially investigating the sexual assaults of multiple women over a fifteen year span, including Sara’s own, and discover they may all be related.

After That Night shows just how good Slaughter is at creating a multilayered story. We’re shown how being rich and privileged gives you power, how that breeds misogyny, and how victims of sexual assault are sometimes treated poorly. We’re also given more insight into Sara and how the events of her past influenced her future. And that twisted ending! Sometimes I question how Slaughter comes up with some of these dark storylines.

There are some lighthearted moments too, as Sara and Will plan their wedding. And while their corny puppy love can be cute, I will forever be Team Sara and Jeffrey (RIP).

I knew as soon as I started this that I wouldn't want to put it down, and I didn't. I had to force myself to stop reading and actually be an adult. Each book in this series continues to build and the momentum never slows down. Sara, Will and Faith have their hands full on this one, but it is personal. It brings up all of Sara's past and old wounds that will never heal, but she would like to at least keep bandages on.
Will hates to see what this is doing to Sara, but they both know this is the only way she can keep her promise to do everything in her power to punish the men who victimized her patient. It will take her on a journey that she wasn't prepared for.
As with any of Karin's books, don't go in expecting anything light, but this one will be particularly triggering for some as there is talk and depictions of SA. The scenarios in this book are wildly real and even if you don't want to believe it could happen to you, or someone you know, you will find parts of this book you will relate to. I can't wait for what's next.
Thanks to William Morrow, Karin Slaughter and Netgalley for an early copy.

GBI Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton together again try to solve the fifteen years rapes involving a club of high profile doctors. The author weaves a story of suspense tale unravels. Does Sara's own rape fifteen years ago have anything to do with the current situation? Readers will learn the truth in this intriguing novel. One star off for the excessive use if the 'f' word.

✨BOOK REVIEW✨

After That Night by @karinslaughterauthor

Yes, I know rocket scientists are insanely smart, but are they as smart as Karin?! Debatable. How does one cleverly craft such a detailed crime fiction story??? I’m just flabbergasted every time and especially with this one.

After That Night is the eleventh book in the Will Trent series and I was fortunate enough to be sent an early copy (shout out to @harpercollins @williammorrowbooks !!!). This was one of my most anticipated reads of the summer and not only did it not disappoint, it exceeded all expectations.

I highly recommend not starting with this book if you haven’t read the others. I don’t think you would understand and fully appreciate the characters’ feelings without having some background. It’s heavily based on Sara’s past and the attack that she experienced years ago.

Side note: Will and Sarah forever and ever and ever. They just look at each other and I get goosebumps. 🥹🥹🥹🥹Idk how she does it.

I don’t know of any books that are as well-researched as Karin’s crime novels. They are dark and full of trauma, with no details spared.

Faith will forever be one of my favorite characters and I think she makes me LOL more than any other. If you haven’t started this series, start now!!! The books get better and better as you go and I am obsessed. Excuse my completely disorganized word vomit but I am just in love with this series and these characters.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ x infinity

Out Aug 22!!

This is a nightmare of a case simultaneously drawing attention to just how close Will and Sara's relationship is in the run up to their marriage, they are everything to each other, this bodes well for their future together. Faith finds herself pushed to the brink when all the dreams she has had for her precious son, Jeremy, threaten to splinter apart, and Amanda once again proves just how ferociously able she is once she becomes involved

. I am not going to lie, this is a tough read, we are not spared the details of the sexual assaults and the type of people who embark on committing such unspeakable crimes, but it is an important read. I will never forget Sara's conversation at a New York hotel with another rape survivor, Sloan Bauer, and the lens through which much of the world views and treats women who are raped. An unmissable addition to a brilliant series!

I have been reading her books for years and she continues to deliver time and time again! This book had a nice number of twists, turns and revelations in addition to the tension which snowballed as the book progressed

Rounded to 4.5 stars.

CONTENT WARNING: stalking, addiction, rape, blood, gore, brief mention of harm to animals, forced drugging, misogyny, domestic abuse, psychological and physical torture, PTSD, suicide

It’s no secret that I’m a Karin Slaughter fan, and I have a soft spot for the Will Trent series. In the last book in this series (The Silent Wife), there was a lot of heavy material that came up, and it had a big impact on the characters in the story as well as the readers.

Slaughter continues on in that vein, always finding ways to keep her stories fresh and intriguing, while also following the lives of the main characters outside of their horrific cases. When we left off in the last book, Will and Sara are engaged and getting ready for a wedding, and Faith is dealing with one kid in college while her toddler basically rules her life, and she’s actively trying to navigate healthy relationships.

Faith’s trauma response to their previous case has landed her on desk duty while Will is off doing other grunt work. Sara is working at the ER when she treats a rape victim who is savagely beaten. The woman, Dani, dies during surgery, but Sara made a promise to Dani that she would do everything she can to find the man who did this to her.

Over the course of the investigation and subsequent trial, Sara is informed by someone close to the case that her own previous rape is linked to Dani’s.

This kicks off an effort by Faith, Will, and Sara to investigate, although they’re forced to do so without the vast resources of the GBI or even police departments, since they’re doing this on their own. But what they discover will rock Sara’s world and shake her understanding of a past that she thought she had put behind her.

As always, Slaughter’s writing is perfect for this genre—concise and descriptive, providing all the basic information needed to put things together. While I normally can’t put things together on my own until Slaughter and the characters spell everything out for me, I was able to figure it out in advance this time, although not fully.

Overall, this wasn’t Slaughter’s strongest mystery, but she made up for it with the character development. After all this time, you’d think we know the characters inside and out, but we get to see how Will and Sara’s relationships adjusts to manage the increased stress on it, and we also get to see Faith actively working to change her relationship patterns. There’s humor, emotional situations, and parts that are horrifying to read about. But ultimately it’s a book that I couldn’t stop reading and a series that I’ll be eagerly anticipating the next book in.

After reading Karin Slaughter's 'Girl, Forgotten' - I was really hoping this one would be better in terms of the mystery - AND IT WAS!!! So many moving pieces and parts of this story in the seedy world of the quietly rich. I had fun figuring out who the real villain(s) were.

THOUGHTS:
- Karin Slaughter has a talent for writing books that point in the direction of the person(s) committing the crime, but as in real life - these people are hard to catch. You need evidence. No going in guns half-cocked. These cases are so horrendous that people committing the crimes must be locked away tightly. You read every line because you, the reader, become invested in finding those small clues that will lock them away forever. (Because, as we all know - that's how people get caught.. they get lazy and leave something small unattended!)

- Something else Slaughter does well is the creation of the quietly insane unlikeable female. She's unlikeable. She's usually not integral to figuring out the crime until seen in a certain light - and I think that's a hard character to right. They're sociopaths hidden in plain sight. Men are often the ones we look at as committing horrible crimes - but women? We typically tend to put them in the victim box, so when they're the perpetrators, puppeteers, or masterminds behind violent crimes? Shocking.

NOTES:
- CWs: Graphic descriptions of the aftermath of s3xual assault

<i>**Thank you to William Morrow & NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. I received this book for free, but all thoughts are my own. – SLR 🖤</i>

Another Karin Slaughter that I could not put down!!!

I love the Will Trent series and this book definitely does not disappoint!!! Tough read at times but well worth the time to read this one!

There are a number of trigger warnings in this one so I'd definitely check those out before you read!

While this is technically part of the Will Trent series you can definitely read this one as a stand-alone. I had never read the others in the book series and had no issues following along. So if you enjoy a dark mystery and don't have many triggers (or none like me) then I'd highly recommend this one!