Packed full of thrills, twists and turns, The Last Widow is a timely, compulsively readable novel that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page.

It’s Sunday, 7 July 2019, and Michelle Spivey and her daughter, Ashley, are spending the afternoon at the mall. Michelle works a busy job as a scientist at Atlanta’s Centre for Disease Control, and she cherishes every minute she gets to spend with her daughter. But as the pair make their way into the parking lot, the unthinkable happens. A van pulls up behind them and a man jumps out, and before Michelle can even scream for help, she’s dragged into the van and driven away.

The abduction makes headlines instantly. The police start hunting for Michelle, and her partner appeals for information and pleads publicly for her release. But there’s no contact from the abductors, no ransom demands, and not a single viable lead. Michelle is gone, vanished into thin air.

One month later, Will Trent is spending a lazy Sunday afternoon with his partner, Sara Linton. They’re both in high-pressure jobs at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation—Will is a Special Agent, and Sara is a doctor and a medical examiner—and a chilled-out weekend is just what they need. It’s not to be, however, and partway through the afternoon, the sleepy stillness is shattered by two enormous explosions at a nearby university campus.

Springing into action, Will and Sara rush to help, but on the way to the campus they’re held up by a traffic accident. Something about it doesn’t feel right, and in the chaos, Sara is abducted. Will begins a desperate search for her, but he’s quickly dragged into a sprawling web of violence, hatred, and deadly conspiracies that leads him to the awful truth behind Michelle Spivey’s disappearance, and to a radical group with mass murder in mind. Can Will find Sara and save thousands of innocent lives? Or are the odds finally stacked too high against him?

As the ninth instalment in the Will Trent series, The Last Widow is another heart-pounding read from New York Times bestseller Karin Slaughter. Will Trent’s last outing was in 2016’s The Kept Woman, and fans of the series will be thrilled by this latest novel, which reveals more about the complicated, deeply likeable Special Agent than ever before. Will’s desperate quest to find Sara gives the story a compelling emotional core, and his very personal stake in the outcome of events ratchets up tension and provides more than a few nail-biting scenes.

With an adrenalin-fuelled plot that explores biological warfare and the rise of the far-right movement, The Last Widowis a topical read that often feels dangerously close to reality, and it’s both chilling and engaging to read a novel so relevant to contemporary events. It’s also meticulously researched, and the rich layers of detail make the story feel so real that each scene plays out in your head like a movie. The action unfolds from the perspectives of several characters, including Will, Sara and Will’s colleague, Faith, and this moves the story along nicely, keeping the suspense high.

Packed full of thrills, twists and turns, The Last Widow is a timely, compulsively readable novel that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page. It’s one of Slaughter’s best.

About the author:

Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed storytellers. Published in 120 countries with more than 35 million copies sold across the globe, her nineteen novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar-nominated Cop Town and the instant New York Times bestselling novels Pretty Girls, The Good Daughter, and Pieces of Her. This summer, Slaughter returns with her latest Will Trent instalment, The Last Widow. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project-a nonprofit organisation established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, Karin Slaughter lives in Atlanta. Her standalone novels Pieces of Her, The Good Daughter and Cop Town are in development for film and television.

Buy a copy of The Last Widow here.