{"id":39215,"date":"2025-06-22T09:13:22","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T09:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/news\/karin-slaughter-on-the-real-life-murders-that-helped-inspire-new-book-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T09:13:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T09:13:22","slug":"karin-slaughter-on-the-real-life-murders-that-helped-inspire-new-book-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/news\/karin-slaughter-on-the-real-life-murders-that-helped-inspire-new-book-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Karin Slaughter on the REAL LIFE murders that helped inspire new book | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\"Author<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Karin Slaughter’s brilliant new thriller starts with the kidnap-murder of two teenage girls (Image: Getty)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

\n

Donald Trump might disagree, but America doesn\u2019t have kings. At least not since 1783 when the young colony won independence from Britain. But while the idiosyncratic US President has likened himself to a monarch, the real and constant power, according to veteran crime writer Karin Slaughter, lies in America\u2019s dynasties.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a theme the creator of the hit Disney+ Will Trent series explores in her stellar new thriller, We Are All Guilty Here, which introduces a brand new cast of characters and a deliciously twisty, psychologically tinged plot set over several decades. Good and bad, rich and poor, the extended Clifton Family has dominated business, governance and law enforcement in south-western Georgia for generations.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, they have a few skeletons in their closet. Think Barbara Taylor Bradford<\/a>\u2026 with murder! \u201cShe was amazing,\u201d Slaughter smiles at the comparison. \u201cI grew up reading sagas, and I wanted to write something like that about this family.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Georgia-born writer, in London last week for the launch of her novel, was influenced by the case of a South Carolina family, the Murdaughs, who, she says, \u201cbasically ran\u201d part of the state \u2013 dubbed \u201cMurdaugh Country\u201d. \u201cThey were involved in the prosecutor\u2019s office and policing,\u201d she continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were revered locally but, as you know, power corrupts, and eventually there were murders \u2013 an entire family was killed \u2013 and the fallout was incredible. So I wanted to talk about dynasties and why sometimes that gives one family too much power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deliciously so, in the case of her new book, set against the backdrop of North Falls in, you guessed it, Clifton County, population 20,000. \u201cI like the idea of good Cliftons, bad Cliftons, the poor Cliftons and the rich Cliftons\u2026 how they overlap and how complicated family relationships are,\u201d Slaughter continues.<\/p>\n

Now 25 years into her career and having sold more than 40 million copies, while being a constant presence in the bestseller charts, she describes the new book as a \u201ccreative reset\u201d. \u201cI thought it was a good time to return to my roots,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\"Ram\u00f3n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Ram\u00f3n Rodr\u00edguez as Will Trent in the Disney adaptation of Slaughter’s bestselling books (Image: Disney)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

\n

\u201cCreating a group of interconnected characters in a small-town community. I liked the idea of \u2018world building\u2019 a new place to give me ample opportunity to kill people and commit crimes!\u201d<\/p>\n

Slaughter, 54, is one of the world\u2019s foremost writers about misogyny and violence against women and, as ever, strong female characters provide the emotional core of the book. Police officer Emmy Clifton, a late arrival for her parents, is daughter of veteran sheriff and family patriarch, Gerald Clifton, 74.<\/p>\n

When two teenage girls, Cheyenne Baker and Madison Dalrymple, are abducted and murdered, her lifelong friendship with the latter\u2019s stepmother Hannah turns toxic after it emerges Emmy brushed off the anxious teen shortly before her disappearance.<\/p>\n

Readers in the UK may be reminded of the horrific Soham murders of ten-year-old friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, by school caretaker Ian Huntley<\/a>. Slaughter knows the case \u2013 her books inevitably necessitate a \u201cs***-ton of research\u201d \u2013 and tells me that, in real-life, such double abduction-murders are thankfully rare.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read research papers and I read academic scholars and I\u2019m very mindful of those, because I feel a great responsibility writing about violence against women,\u201d she continues. \u201cWhen I first started writing a million years ago, violence against women was told from a very male perspective and the solution was always a man would save a woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell you might be physically saved, but not psychologically. So I wanted to write about the lonely places victims, predominantly women, find themselves in.\u201d Early on in her career, she felt nearly every book critic seemed to be a man. \u201cAnd it just scared the s*** out of them to read about violence from a woman\u2019s perspective because they\u2019d never done that before.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard for some of them to understand why a woman would write about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a wide-ranging conversation, about everything from migration to misogyny, Slaughter frequently sets me straight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\"Toni<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Toni Collette as Laura Oliver and Bella Heathcote as Andy Oliver in Pieces Of Her (Image: Mark Rogers\/Netflix )<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

\n

And despite being a writer of page-turning fiction, whose books are never less than utterly entertaining, she should be required reading for anyone wanting to better understand toxic masculinity and the struggles faced the world over by women. Last time we spoke, the US Supreme Court had just controversially overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that legalised abortion nationwide in America. Slaughter was fuming. Today she remains horrified at the steady erosion of civil liberties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are certain tenets I grew up with as an American that have gone to the wind and that really bothers me. It\u2019s the hypocrisy and the belief that, \u2018We can\u2019t get our way democratically, so we\u2019re going to exert control.\u2019 Wisconsin voted to allow abortion and reproductive rights in a referendum, and the Republican lawmakers just reversed that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being young and especially female, she fears, is becoming harder. She mines the experiences of nieces and nephews for her portrayals of young people. \u201cAnd I have friends with kids and I just steal from them,\u201d she smiles. \u201cBut I also remember what it was like. It was hard when I was a teenager but now\u2026how do they do it? How do they survive? And how do they navigate into adulthood, particularly when we have a society that rewards selfish behaviour?\u201d<\/p>\n

This is reflected in We Are All Guilty Here in attitudes towards Madison and Cheyenne that we might call victim blaming. After jailing the man they believe to be the killer, a local bad seed known as \u201cthe Perv\u201d, the action leaps forward 12 years.<\/p>\n

Despite failing health, Gerald remains sheriff while Emmy continues to deal with the fall-out from the murders and the guilt that dogs her every step.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book deals a lot with memory, which is just where I am in my life, where you\u2019re looking back. You see fewer years ahead than behind,\u201d Slaughter says. \u201cDespite being a millennial, Emmy\u2019s one of the most Gen-X characters I\u2019ve written because she\u2019s dealing with raising a child and her ageing parents.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\"Rodr\u00edguez<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez as George Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent (Image: Disney)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

\n

She continues: \u201cI wanted to have Gerald at a point in his life where he is reflecting on the bad decisions he made and making a choice to be a better person. We forget we can choose not to be grumpy assholes, or we can say, \u2018Maybe the problem, to paraphrase Taylor Swift, is me\u2019. Gerald made a choice and part of that came through raising Emmy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slaughter remains incredibly close to her own father, Howard. \u201cHe had some health problems,\u201d she says. \u201cHe\u2019s okay now, but we really thought we were gonna lose him and so that played a lot into Gerald.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a podcast throws doubt on the Perv\u2019s conviction, it leads to his release and opens a whole new can of worms. Then another young girl goes missing, in chillingly similar circumstances, and Emmy finds herself in the eye of the storm.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s classic Slaughter territory, into which she throws in newly retired FBI agent Jude \u2013 and it soon emerges she has a link to the Cliftons. It\u2019s a world away from the Disney+ adaptation of Slaughter\u2019s best-selling Will Trent series, featuring the dyslexic and, quite possibly, on-the-spectrum Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent.<\/p>\n

Starring Puerto Rican actor Ram\u00f3n Rodriguez as Will, and Erika Christensen as his childhood girlfriend turned homicide detective Angie, the hit series, which was renewed earlier this year for a fourth season, has alarmed some purists for taking a lighter touch than the bestselling books on which it is based. Slaughter remains sanguine. \u201cI am involved in it and I love what they\u2019re doing,\u201d she smiles. \u201cBut I knew it was Disney so they\u2019re not gonna have Angie be a heroin addict who kills her childhood pimp, right? I\u2019m proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, her standalone novel, Pieces Of Her, was adapted for Netflix<\/a> starring Aussie actors Toni Collette and Bella Heathcote, and Slaughter has adapted her 2017 novel, The Good Daughter, for TV.<\/p>\n

But we can expect more from the Cliftons and Emmy in the future. While her work inevitably revolves around violence towards women, Karin insists she is an equal opportunities writer: \u201cI kill men in my books, I never get credit for that!”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

She adds: \u201cThere are a lot of boys as well and girls who do crazy s*** when they\u2019re teenagers. And you don\u2019t really find out about it until they\u2019re 40 and they\u2019re drinking a glass of wine and talking about, \u2018How did we survive?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were just at a point in their lives where they were acting out and trying to become women and they were targeted by a predator. And that happens more than we like to admit \u2013 a lot of women have this sort of thing in their past and never speak about it.\u201d But that doesn\u2019t mean we shouldn\u2019t read about it.<\/p>\n