Occasionally I’m drawn to historical fiction, high brow literary works, and out-of-the-box fantasy, but my mainstay is a true crime psychological thriller. I want folks to die and I want to stay up all night and stress about who did it.
I’m a true glutton.
I’d never read a Karin Slaughter book before Pretty Girls, but now that my eyes have been opened I’m going to read everything she’s written. She belongs on the shelf next to Gillian Flynn, Mo Hayder, and Tana French.
Claire, the wife of an Atlanta millionaire, is in the emotional throes of burying her husband, Paul, who was murdered right in front of her. She’s a mess, so the last thing she needs is for old wounds to come undone. That’s what happens, of course. The vanishing of a local teenage girl brings back a flood of memories from when Claire’s sister went missing decades prior. Lydia, the third sister, resurfaces from her own pit of despair to help Claire cope when clues about Paul’s seemingly unsuspecting life unearths a slew of secrets. Like an onion, Claire and Lydia peel back the layers to reveal what was true all along.
Perfectly paced, there is not one dull page in Pretty Girls. A warning, though: this book crawls into the darkest corners of physical and psychological trauma. It is not for the faint of mind. Slaughter is a master at imagery. She writes so that you see the full scene. No details are left behind.
You’ve been warned.