There are things I like a lot about All Guilty, and there are some I like much less, but no one can doubt the splendid architecture of Slaughter and the full court press she puts into her stories.

I’ve only read Slaughter three times now (also Cop Town and Pretty Girls) and although she’s well known for her series novels, All Guilty is the first I’ve read of those (this is supposed to be the first of a new series for her). That’s a strength of this book. The setting of North Falls and Clifton County is excellently built with lore and characters and presence so much so that I absolutely want to come back and peel away the layers of this place.

Slaughter, as she’s done every time I read her, constructs a compelling, professional narrative that has the reader locked in on where it’s heading next. This is another strength. She rivets you to the page, impressed with both the story and how well she’s telling it. All Guilty is no exception.

What I haven’t found in Slaughter’s stories is that the reveal lives up to the build. It’s good, but not as great as what came in the telling. The plot can get a little bogged down near the end, the reveal (which usually has to be a twisty one) leaves the baddies seeming one-note and not as layered as I’d hoped. Either by off-target motivation or by the twirling-mustache behavior that seems unworthy of the complicated hunt that preceded it. Maybe both. It could just be a choice that doesn't work for me. Also, I’m not sure the falling action after the climax was enough to really deserve the page time it received.

I think Slaughter fans will enjoy All Guilty. I think thriller fans will enjoy it. I would definitely like to see where this series leads. But I’d also like to see a finish that was as smashing as the build for Slaughter and the impressive writing she displays.

Thank you to William Morrow Books for providing an uncorrected ARC via NetGalley.

“Mistakes can give you a reason to forgive.”

“Bad men don’t need a logical reason to do bad things to women.”

“A mean has to prove himself once. A woman has to prove herself every day.”

A book on finding the missing piece to save a life.

Trigger warning: child abduction, pedophilia, murder, and loss/grief.

Oh my gosh I loved this book! It’s basically a law and order SVU episode in a book. So some of the elements in this book are very heavy and very real. One thing I will say is I would not recommend planning to sit down and read this book in like one sitting. I feel it’s definitely a story told best broken up into a few days, which will be hard because you will want to keep going. Yet, I could see readers getting a little bored, because it’s a mystery/who done it and a lot of information is often repeated.

I thought the relationships between family members was very relatable, especially for people that may have different family connections. I loved the relationship between Emmy and her father Gerald. I thought he challenged her just enough, but also gave her the support where needed. The characters in the story are also just very relatable, dealing with their own personal struggles and figuring out how to properly over come them. Now, do I think the Clifton family has some really negative ways they handle their emotions…yes. However, it reflects what a lot of people think about showing emotions and things like therapy.

This story may be the focus of kidnappings but wow does it hold a lot more depth than that! The ending made me very very emotional and was a really good twist!!

Fantastic! I love Karin Slaughter all her books!

This one to me was a slow burn in the beginning and then what I thought was obvious was not… a lot of twists! I love a good twist - esp one I didn’t see coming

We follow Emmylou and her dad both sherrifs in town - investigating missing girls. This gave me pretty girl vibes!!!

I feel like this is the type of book you can blow through in one sitting without realizing. It has just enough suspense that keeps you flipping the pages, eager to find out what happens next. Although I was able to make some predictions before they were revealed, it still kept me on my toes and interested the entire way through. The story had a documentary like feel to it which I loved! I would recommend! 3.5⭐ rounded up just because.

I love Karin Slaughter with my whole soul. Her novel Pretty Girls is in my top three thrillers of all time.
This book was a complete roller coaster from start to finish. If you enjoy shows like Criminal Minds, this one is for you. The writing is very detailed and full of all kinds emotions. I could see the scenes play out in my mind and feel everything the FMC was going through. There’s a lot packed into these pages, and it’s worth paying close attention, since every detail builds toward a much larger picture.
I caught myself gasping more than once, whether it was from the horrors that unfolded or the plot twists that came later on.
I was a goner from the very first page and I’m already looking forward to whatever comes next in the series.

It’s the Fourth of July, and the entire town is down at the lake watching the fireworks. While everyone is occupied, the unthinkable happens. Two best friends Madison and Cheyanne go missing. What follows, is an intense and troubled search to find the culprit before time runs out. Father and daughter sheriff duo, Gerald and Emmy Lou, lead the charge and are later assisted by FBI consultant, Jude, when things take a turn for the worse.

Wow! What a ride that book was with all its twists and turns and ups and downs. There was the right amount of tension and suspense that kept me up, reading past my bedtime because I couldn’t put it down. There were about 3 or 4 twists that’s kept coming and they all added an extra layer of depth to the story. It’s a scary story because it points out how monsters are hiding in plain sight everyday and we never know until it’s too late. Some of the subject material was very hard to stomach though and i typically try and stay clear of books depicting that type of violence (trying to give spoilers).

Thanks you so much Net Galley, William Morrow Books, and Karin Slaughter for this ARC!

Horribly long….hated how many times “holding breath” was mentioned….hated calling how they called people sweetheart and baby….im from the south and I would never call my adult son “baby”.

“What do we know? What do we think we know? What are we missing?”

We Are All Guilty Here (North Falls #1) is the new psychological thriller by Karin Slaughter that will leave you shell-shocked! North Falls is a small town in Georgia, ran mostly by the Clifton family. Gerald Clifton is the Sheriff and his daughter, Emmy, is an officer. On Fourth of July, two 15-year-old girls get abducted with a crime scene that gives little hope for their safe return home. While Emmy is trying to desperately work as fast as she can to bring the girls home, she begins to find things out about the people in her town – and the girls – that leaves her stunned. What will it take to bring their kidnappers to justice? And when another girl is taken 12 years later, what does Emmy have to do to stop this madness once and for all?

Just WOW! Slaughter is the absolute queen of thriller storytelling. Her novels always amaze me – and leave me speechless. She creates full towns and scenery that you can visualize and place yourself in, and characters that – while are messed up – are believable. Simply put, she is brilliant at her craft (and must write the key parts and the ending first and work her way backwards).

If you have not read a Slaughter book before, I must warn you there are a lot of trigger warnings. Her vivid descriptions about trauma and crimes are not for the faint of heart. This book emotionally and mentally will gut you, while leaving you yearning to read another KS book sooner rather than later.

Emmy was such a powerful character, and I was enthralled by the relationship between her and Jude. Those two together will be a force to be reckoned with and I’m so excited about future North Falls books. Honestly, I thought this book in some areas dragged on and could have been shorter – but when the book ended, I wanted another chapter so bad! I needed more communication between Jude and Emmy, and I hope the next book in this series picks up where this one ends.

You will be left analyzing multiple forms of guilt and how various levels of trauma can affect everyone in a town differently. While I figured out some key parts and players about 60% in, I was still fascinated by the outcome and how Slaughter brought everything together.

Overall, this was a dark, intense read. If you don’t like watching crime shows late at night, this may not be the book for you. But if you like emotionally gripping thrillers, I would preorder this now and be ready to read it right when it comes out on August 12, 2025!

4.5 stars!

Thank you so much to NetGalley for this suspenseful arc! All opinions are my own.

“Mistakes can give you a reason to forgive.”

The story starts with the investigation of two teenaged girls who've been kidnapped in a small town where everyone knows everyone. The police scramble to uncover what happened in hopes of finding the girls alive but as they reveal more of the secrets these teens were hiding, things begin to look extremely grim.

This book is full of tension and high stakes for the first 8 chapters and then there's a big twist to the storyline, which creates even more complexity and added layers of mystery to the novel. I really liked the levels this book had despite it being so devastating and emotional.

Overall, this was a brilliant well written investigative crime thriller that was hard to put down. I read it in 48 hours. I felt immediately connected to the main detective, Emmy, and had to discover how the story would end as quickly as possible in hopes of seeing justice served.

If you can get past the long list of triggers and heavy subject matter, this book would make a great book club pick. At its heart it's a detective story with mysteries to solve, but it also has topics of family, overcoming mistakes, forgiveness, and the many twist, turns, and trials that life provides for people as they age and find themselves.

In true Karin Slaughter fashion, this novel has hefty trigger warnings and deals with disturbing topics- child abduction, murder, pedophiles, SA, drug dealing, etc. So, just be aware of this before picking it up. Otherwise, I highly recommend that thriller fans grab a copy when it's published. I was happy to learn this is book 1 in a new series and I look forward to seeing where the rest of this goes.

4.5 ⭐️

Karin Slaughter does it again! This book was suspenseful—a well-crafted masterpiece that had me at the edge of my seat. “We Are All Guilty Here” is such a page-turner!! I was trying to guess the whole way through what was actually going on under the surface!

Characters: There are SO many characters. I did have to stop and think back to who a certain character was from time to time. The web weaved in this small town crime drama/thriller necessitates a large cast of characters however, and provides many uncovered secrets and history that we otherwise wouldn’t have known. I think the large cast of characters also gives us insight not just into our main character, Emmy’s motivations but also the perceptions she has of others and vice versa, which was integral to how she and her unit approached solving the crimes that take place in this book.

Plot: This book had so many twists! Turns! Thrills! Genuinely I was so engaged in the plot and felt eager to keep reading (even at the expense of my bedtime) in order to figure out what is going on.

Setting: I really enjoyed the setting, as I felt the description of the town around them, as well as the insular nature of the community, added immensely to the themes of the story.

IMO, this book would be a fantastic movie or series!

Overall, I would highly recommend this one to other thriller lovers! Especially if you enjoy crime dramas or Slaughter’s other books. I would just note that there are some potential triggers in the content, similar to many crime dramas/thrillers that focus on crimes against children and women.

Karin Slaughter is a masterful writer. This was a dark, suspenseful thriller where the Clifton County Sheriff's Department works to solve the kidnapping of two 15-year-old girls. And then years later, they have a similar case where they investigate whether they had it right the first time. Or if there's another suspect they overlooked. Emmy is a flawed but wonderful character. I can't wait to read more from this series. But, again, Karin Slaughter's books come with a lot of content warnings.

The scream I let out when I was approved for this one should win awards. I love Karin Slaughter so much. Having gone through almost the entirety of her backlog, I have been craving something new from her (and while I'll always want more Will Trent), this satisfied that craving.

The start of a new series, We Are All Guilty Here follows Emmy, an officer in North Falls and the case that has haunted her. I didn't expect the time jump to occur and felt like that was a new one for Slaughter. Either way, this novel took many turns I didn't anticipate.

The one thing I would potentially dock points for is that I guessed the killer fairly early on. I almost never manage to do that with her novels and was surprised I spotted it so easily. Despite that fact, the story itself was a wild ride and I was constantly doubting whether I was right.

Thank you to William Morrow for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.25 stars

Set in a small Georgia town where everybody knows everybody, We Are All Guilty Here is a gripping, emotionally layered police procedural that begins with the disappearance of two teenage girls on the 4th of July. The town’s police force is a family affair, with the long-serving and beloved Sheriff, his daughter as the deputy Chief, and her son in the ranks. As the investigation unfolds, friendships are tested, loyalties are questioned, tempers flare and lies abound. Parents of teenage daughters beware: this one is tough to read.

This is the kind of story that keeps its cards close to the chest. Clues are revealed gradually, and while the central investigation delivers a few surprises along the way, the real twist doesn’t hit until the very end, and it’s a stunner. The mystery is compelling on its own, but what sets this book apart is the emotional weight of its relationship dynamics. Watching characters grapple with fractured relationships and the pressure of expectation brings a raw depth to the story.

If you enjoy police procedurals with a strong emotional core, complex characters, and a community full of suspects, this one is for you. Karin Slaughter delivers another dark, suspenseful read that’s as much about relationships as what happens in an investigation. Prepare to feel every emotion and question every turn.

A relentless small‑town thriller filled with grit, guilt, and gut punches from page one. Set in North Falls, Georgia, the novel begins with the disappearance of two teenage girls during Fourth‑of‑July fireworks — and unravels layer by layer into a dark tapestry of secrets and suspicion.

Deputy Emmy Clifton, driven by regret over ignoring a plea for help from one of the girls, becomes the emotional core of this story. Her journey hits heartbreaking highs and devastating lows as she digs into the lives of the town’s residents—and confronts the truth that no one is blameless. Slaughter’s depiction of North Falls is haunting—equal parts charming and claustrophobic. Emmy is complex and compelling—driven by trauma yet grounded in guilt. Plot twists land with surgical precision—just when you think you’ve got it figured out, she pulls the rug.The story can be brutal: themes of child abduction and violence may be triggering for some. Still, the payoff is brutal, emotional, and utterly unforgettable. Whether you're a longtime Slaughter fan or new to her work, We Are All Guilty Here proves she’s still writing at the top of her game.

I absolutely loved this one.

Karin Slaughter never disappoints! This was another wild ride with multiple twist you didn’t see coming. If you are in a reading slump this is a good book to pick up.

Thank you #netgalley for the advanced copy!

“We Are All Guilty Here” is a suspenseful thriller and it definitely keeps you on your toes. Just when you think you know, you actually don’t. The twists, the unexpected story plots, all the way to the last chapter, is more thrilling and shocking than you could ever imagine. What an amazing read!

I've only read one book from Karin Slaughter so I thought now would be a great time to read more because this is the first in a brand new series from her. We Are All Guilty Here is a well written and TENSE novel about two missing girls and the officer with a personal connection who will do everything to see they are found. As with the last book I've read from Slaughter I found this book to be emotional as it deals with some tough topics AND trauma. Readers should check out other reviews and any other potential trigger warnings if you're bothered by darker themes.

All in all, I enjoyed this one and am looking forward to seeing where Slaughter takes the series. I definitely flew through this one despite the longer page count and was full invested in the story.

While this was a slow burn in the beginning, I truly enjoyed Karin Slaughter's newest series. I can't wait for more from North Falls. This book was filled with mystery, heartbreak, and deceit. I would highly recommend you add this to your TBR immediately!

This was my first book by Karin Slaughter. It did not disappoint. At first, I was like it’s kind of slow but each chapter was a set up for more. The book had me guessing at every clue and every twist and turn that book gave. I didn’t expect the book to end the way it did, but the unexpected ending was welcomed. Overall, I gave it a 4 stars. I don’t love small town type of story lines usually, but I enjoyed the writing style of the author and the story. I could definitely see this being a show or movie

Thank you William Morrow for the gifted arc and finished copy.
I could not put this book down. I loved the small southern town vibes, the family with cousins, aunts, and uncles in every branch of the town.
These two FMC are strong, badass women. I love a female detective book and this is a promising start to a new series.