After That Night

After That Night is the eleventh book in the Will Trent series by best-selling American author, Karin Slaughter. Three years after Sara Linton desperately tries to save the life of an accident victim in the ED at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, she's testifying in a civil court in a compensation suit for the young woman's wrongful death.

As her treating doctor, Sara was the only one who heard Danielle Cooper's claim that she was raped, and her plea to please stop him. All the evidence pointed to Tommy McAllister, med student at Emory and son of two wealthy doctors, a couple who use their influence to engage effective representation to save their son's reputation. After all, they've done it before.

But, having completed her testimony, Sara encounters Tommy's mother in the bathroom, tearful, distraught and clearly under the influence of a substance. Britt McAllister's words reveal that she knows what her son has done; moreover, she links Dani's assault to the one that Sara endured fifteen years earlier. And yet, she believes she can rehabilitate her son.

Some of what Britt has said leads Sara to believe that this is not a singular event, that other perpetrators are involved, and that other young women are in danger. Apparently it relates back to a Friday night mixer Sara attended before her attack, where her then beau and his gang of med student friends, who included the McAllisters, were in the habit of getting drunk and obnoxious. But Sara identified the man who assaulted her. He went to prison.

How can it possibly be linked to the attack on Dani Cooper, twelve years later? As she and Will and Faith puzzle over Britt's words, Will says: "When two things are connected, you investigate both things. So, in order to look at what Tommy's been up to, we'd have to look into what happened to you. And if we're good at our jobs and find the connection that Britt is talking about, that means there's a criminal prosecution, and if there's a criminal prosecution—"

Which is how they find themselves conducting their own investigation, very much under the radar of the Atlanta Police Department, without the knowledge of their truly scary GBI boss, Amanda Wagner. And all this, as Sara's family and friends make preparations for her wedding to Will. But the last thing, surely, that Sara wants to do is to resurrect the awful incident that completely changed her life fifteen years earlier? Then another young woman goes missing…

Even as Slaughter gives the reader an, at times, quite confronting read, a tension-filled narrative that twists and surprises before the final dramatic climax, she uses the (often dark) humour in dialogue, Faith Mitchell's especially, and in Will's inner monologue, to lighten the mood: "Amanda walked around her desk and sat down beside him. He often forgot how tiny she was. Sitting on the edge of the chair, she looked small enough to fit in his pocket, if he was the type of man who would put a live scorpion in his pocket."

All the regulars (except Lena) feature in this instalment, with all their best qualities as well as their flaws and insecurities on display. Will shows a real talent for ad-libbing, and copes well with the prospect of dancing at his wedding. That she will, with each new novel, surpass her previous work is by now a given: Karin Slaughter never disappoints. This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Collins UK.