The Book:
We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter (North Falls #1)
August 12, 2025 by William Morrow
Date read: July 14, 2026
Re-read: September 19, 2026
Find more August 2025 releases here.
We Are All Guilty Here spoilers can be found below, but they’re hidden under a spoiler tag so you’re safe to keep scrolling if you’d just like to read my review.
The Characters:
Emmy Clifton – deputy
Useless and abusive husband Jonah
Her son, Cole
Her father Gerald is the sheriff
Huge family in North Falls with interesting history
Two dead siblings who passed when she was a baby and they were 17 and 18 (different incidents)
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
The first thrilling mystery in the new North Falls series from Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Girls and the Will Trent Series. Welcome to North Falls-a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think. Until the night of the fireworks. When two teenage girls vanish, and the town ignites. For Officer Emmy Clifton, it’s personal. She turned away when her best friend’s daughter needed help-and now she must bring her home. But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did. Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?
We Are All Guilty Here Spoilers
About a third of the way through the book, Emmy finds Madison and Cheyenne’s bodies in her Aunt Millie’s pond. The supposed killer is Adam Huntsinger, known as The Perv.
The timeline then jumps to 12 years later, on the day that Adam is being released from prison.
Emmy’s mother now has an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Cole is now a deputy, and Emmy the chief. Gerald is still the sheriff. Emmy and Jonah got a divorce and Dylan Alvarez is her new love interest.
Adam was being released so early because a terrible alibi came up for him: a woman named Barbara Jericho had recognized him as the man who raped her the night of the girls’ deaths. He was cleared of the murder charge and on bail pending the trial for rape, but Emmy, Cole, and Gerald still believed he was guilty.
This time, another girl has gone missing. Her name is Paisley. Emmy and Gerald begin to investigate, but Gerald is shot and killed by Paul, who was aiming for Emmy. (Paul was Madison’s father. His wife Hannah was Emmy’s best friend until Madison died, but they haven’t really spoken in the twelve years since).
The Reveal:
Jude Archer is Emmy’s presumed-dead sister Martha. Henry really was dead: he drowned when he and Martha were drinking and swimming in the Falls, but they didn’t find his body for six days. Martha was a big drinker: she crashed while driving drunk, injuring her other brother Tommy as well as Bubba Rawley, the driver of the oncoming car. Bubba wanted her arrested, so instead Gerald told her to leave town and told everyone she died in the crash.
Emmy and Jude investigate Paisley’s disappearance together, and discover that Adam was in fact innocent. His father Walden had scapegoated him when the first two girls were found. Walden had used Adam’s ID to leave town, establish an alibi in another city, and fly back in time to kidnap the girls.
The real twist though was that Virgil, the deputy chief, had been Walden’s accomplice. Or rather, Walden had been Virgil’s accomplice. Virgil used his status as an officer to tamper all the evidence against himself and Walden. Dale Loudermilk had also provided the car that they killed the girls in. He wasn’t involved because he liked younger girls (gross), but Virgil had covered up some of his crimes so Dale owed him a favor.
The Ending:
Luckily, Paisley was still alive in Virgil’s barn and Emmy was able to save her.
The final reveal of the book is that Jude is really Emmy’s mother, and that Myrna had raised Emmy as her own once Jude left town. All of the Cliftons backed up Myrna and Gerald’s story that Myrna had broken her leg, they discovered she was pregnant when she went to get x-rayed, and she had the baby while recovering from the broken leg. At the end of the book, Emmy does not know that Jude is her mother, and Jude has decided to keep the secret and continue to live as Emmy’s older sister.
I hope these We Are All Guilty Here spoilers were helpful.
The Review:
I read this book over a year ago while on vacation, and I can’t believe I never posted a review! Life got busy once I got home from that trip, I suppose.
I just listened to WE ARE ALL GUILTY HERE again in anticipation of the sequel, and it was just as good on a second pass. I loved hunting for clues to what I knew was coming. Here’s the review I started last year but never posted:
Let me start by saying how excited I am that Karin Slaughter is treating us to a new series. I have been the BIGGEST Grant County/Will Trent fan and will always love those books, but I’m also excited for new characters and a new storyline. With Kathleen Early still narrating, the North Falls series feels familiar and fresh at the same time. The reveal in WE ARE ALL GUITY HERE was classic Karin Slaughter, but the relationships between these characters are all brand new. I can’t wait to follow Emmy to the next book and see what other horrors Karin has in store for her.
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