Becky's Great Book Reviews We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter

We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter opens on a fourth of July fireworks celebration in small town Georgia. Fifteen-year-old Madison Dalrymple is waiting to meet her friend Cheyenne; they have a plan to carry out. But when Cheyenne doesn't show on time, Madison knows something went wrong. She doesn't know how wrong until a man knocks her unconscious and her world goes black.

Emmy Clifton and her sherriff father are the law-enforcement team who are tasked with finding out what happened to Madison and Cheyenne, now missing. With their bikes found on the grounds of the July fourth celebration, along with Cheyenne's blood and Madison's phone, they know it's a race against time to find them. Slaughter tells readers through her prose that kidnapping victims are often murdered within the first hour, and few are found alive after the first three hours.

A local man is eventually found guilty of murdering the teen girls and put in prison. Fast forward twelve years and a long-lost member of the Clifton family returns to help find yet another missing teenage girl. The man found guilty of kidnapping and killing Madison and Cheyenne, recently freed, is the number one suspect.

Through Emmy's relentless investigations, readers are introduced to several members of the community that could be the Bad Guy. Karin Slaughter's skillful character-development brings readers inside the Clifton family and its decades-old secrets and drama.

Multiple twists in the plot lend themselves to an intense reading experience; a plethora of characters one has to keep track of is the only thing standing between this book and perfection. I was breathless at many times during this thriller; I give We Are All Guilty Here four and a half stars out of five.