Book of the Day

From the review

Karin Slaughter opens The Secrets We Hide with two gunshots and no warning: Allison Vickery dead on her own kitchen floor, her teenage daughter shot and left for dead one flight up. Sheriff Emmy Clifton takes the call. So does her sister, Jude Archer, an ex-federal agent. North Falls likes to think of itself as a decent, unremarkable town, all quiet residential streets. That claim doesn't survive the first chapter, and Slaughter doesn't waste time getting to the part where the neighbors start talking. The Vickerys already had a reputation on their street before the shooting, and Slaughter spends the book testing how much of it actually held up. This is the second North Falls novel, following We Are All Guilty Here, and the town hasn't gotten any more honest with itself in the meantime. Slaughter works the investigation household by household, and nearly everyone Emmy questions turns out to be protecting something, whether or not it has anything to do with the murder. It isn't supposed to resolve clean this early. This is a proper small-town whodunit, with enough plausible suspects that guessing right feels like luck as much as deduction. The case stands on its own; you don't need book one to follow who did what, but North Falls carries enough history behind it that readers who started at the beginning will catch undercurrents that first-timers won't.