Pieces of Her

By: Karin Slaughter

Narrated by: Kathleen Early

Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

The gripping standalone thriller from number one internationally best-selling author Karin Slaughter, soon to be a Netflix series starring Toni Colette and Bella Heathcote.

She’s the person you think you know best.... But what if you don’t actually know her at all?

Andy Oliver thinks she knows everything about her mother Laura.

Until, in a moment of terrible danger, Laura steps forward into the line of fire.

Now, Andy must embark on a desperate race against time to uncover the secrets of her mother’s past.

Before they both run out of time....

©2018 Karin Slaughter (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"Slaughter has outdone herself with Pieces of Her – a novel that sets the standard for psychological thriller writing. Rarely in fiction have the past and the present collided with such force and in such a distinctive and compelling voice." (Jeffery Deaver)

"Amongst the world‘s greatest and finest crime writers." (Yrsa Sigurðardóttir)

"Slaughter judiciously keeps the characterisation of her imperilled protagonists to the fore." (Guardian)

"The tops of the Tupperware."

For thirty years, Andrea's life had been an unsatisfactory drift and she'd been relieved to return home from her miserable New York existence to nurse Laura, her mother, through cancer treatment. Then a celebration of her 31st birthday turns to horror when a young gunman shoots two people only to be stopped and killed by her mother. Returning home, Laura tells her she must go, cannot stay even one more night. It was as if she were someone Andy didn't know at all - where had the kind and loving woman gone?

Written in alternating present and past chapters, the full story of her mother's youth is revealed. Descriptions are vivid, the story moves at a steady pace and characters are mostly well developed. And herein lies the problem: both the main protagonist, Andy, and in large part her mother, are such annoyingly silly people it is very hard to relate to them. However, the background story is sufficiently interesting to carry the reader onward, the text well written. But frequent repetition also cluttered the book, as if the reader needed periodic updates on what has gone before,l leaving a book which would have benefited in losing perhaps four or five hours of the sixteen of this book.
Narration is by Kathleen Early, whose pleasant voice is well modulated, with a steady pace but without clear definition of voices of the characters. It was a fine reading rather than an actual performance.

An enjoyable, stand alone mystery thriller perhaps better read in print where repetitious chunks can more easily be skipped.