I learned from Karin Slaughter quite a while ago now that, contrary to my childhood fantasies, Atlanta Georgia is not all peach tree streets but has its fair share of mean streets as well. It is 2021 and sisters, Leigh and Callie, are being forced to revisit their traumatic memories of 1998 and the involvement of two young girls, Harleigh and Calliope, with the evil Buddy Waleski.
Interestingly, the pandemic is threaded through the story in present day Atlanta with facts such as in the USA there have been 500,000 COVID related deaths and there are thousands of new cases daily, but people have to make a living and for the survivors life goes on. Although America has more than 10 times the population of Australia, 500,000 fatalities quite boggles the mind.
This is a dark story with graphic scenes of violence, drug taking and addiction. There is ugliness and horror coming from the mean streets but to counter all of that there is also goodness, kindness and, above all, love. Leigh, Callie and Andrew appear as children and as adults and the answer to the question about nature versus nurture comes down on the side of nature in each case, or at least that was my interpretation (I’m assuming Leigh and Callie had a nice father. You’ll see what I mean).
Karin Slaughter always has a deep understanding of her characters: their faults, their virtues, their weaknesses and their strengths. One lovely thing about this book is the people who love and respect animals, no matter their personal circumstances. My favourite character was Dr Jerry, the vet.
Published by Harper Collins
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