suspense à la Slaughter

http://looneybooks79.blog/2022/08/22/book-review-pieces-of-her/

Switching between 3,5 & 4 star rating

Karin Slaughter is called the Queen of Crime for a reason, this book proves that as well… but before I get into it in a little more detail, I wish to explain my rating for the novel… I had seen the tv-show on Netflix before I read any of the books in the Andrea Oliver series (now containing two with Girl, forgotten recently published) ànd I read its sequel first (got a review copy from HarperCollins Flanders and read it before this book); all this leads to me having a somewhat distorted experience reading this novel… this in combination with the fact that the novel has long chapters made it a slow burner for me… but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like the novel, because its content is a great mystery novel about Andrea Oliver’s live being turned upside down after her mother saves her from a shooter in a restaurant and suddenly all kinds of weird things come to the surface about her mother’s past… and Andrea discovers she was being lied to her entire life. We see her change from a very naive and weak character to a strong woman that tackles on all the problems in her situation only to find out what really is going on and what her mother hid for her entire life!

The switch between 2018 and the past in 1986 is done really good… we are left in the dark enough till the end, so that we (as readers) learn what Laura (aka Jane Queller) did what she did for reasons you wouldn’t expect. Her past is one of desire, despair, death and disappointment… Tension is kept high in this crime and mystery novel, proof that Slaughter knows how to captivate her readers and audience!

The reason why I had some trouble finding the right pace in the novel is on the one hand I read a chapter each night in bed before I went to sleep and on the other hand because I watched the tv-series first and the changes they made to the show in comparison to what happens in the novel are (in hindsight) regrettable… If I would have read the book first, I wouldn’t have liked the show, I’m afraid… (in the tv show Andrea only makes the wrong decisions)

So my experience was somewhat biased by that… unfortunately (because I adored Girl, forgotten very much!) But thus does not mean I will not read another Slaughter novel because she is a really good writer, a smart writer as she knows how to keep her readers guessing at what’s really going on, long enough to keep them wanting to know the real deal!

My advice: read this novel, skip the tv-show (or watch it but don’t compare) and you will definitely enjoy the book! (Why can’t they stick to the source material when adapting it to a movie or tv-serie?)