Pretty Girls

#1 New York Times bestselling author Karin Slaughter’s Pretty Girls is a sophisticated and chilling psychological thriller of dangerous secrets, cold vengeance, and unexpected absolution, in which two estranged sisters must come together to find truth about two harrowing tragedies, twenty years apart, that devastate their lives.

Sisters. Strangers. Survivors.
CLAIRE: A glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire.LYDIA: A single mother dating an ex-con, who struggles to make ends meet.JULIA: The sister whose devastating disappearance more than two decades earlier shattered their family. When the shocking murder of Claire’s husband brings the horror and heartbreak of the cold case of her sister’s disappearance roaring back, she is forced to form a wary truce with Lydia, whom she has not spoken to in decades. Two crimes, nearly a quarter century apart: What could connect them? Haunted, the surviving sisters begin to unearth the dark family secrets that destroyed their family all those years ago … and find the astonishing truth where they least expected it. Powerful, poignant, and an utterly gripping crime thriller, packed with indelible characters and dark, unforgettable twists, Pretty Girls is a masterful novel from one of the finest writers working today.
The secrets connecting a brutal murder to a decades-old disappearance are about to be unearthed. But will the truth save them, or bury them forever?

Karin Slaughter is the author of more than twenty instant NEW YORK TIMES bestselling novels, including the Edgar–nominated COP TOWN and standalone novels THE GOOD DAUGHTER, PRETTY GIRLS, and GIRL, FORGOTTEN. She is published in 120 countries with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. PIECES OF HER is a #1 Netflix original series starring Toni Collette. The Will Trent Series is on ABC (and streaming on Hulu in the U.S, and Disney+ internationally). THE GOOD DAUGHTER and FALSE WITNESS are in development for film/tv. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta.

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“Stunning family.... Certain to be a book of the year.” - Lee Child

“Slaughter’s eye for detail and truth is unmatched. . . . I’d follow her anywhere.” - Gillian Flynn

“One of the boldest thriller writers working today.” - Tess Gerritsen

“Her characters, plot, and pacing are unrivaled among thriller writers.” - Michael Connelly

“Breathtaking…. Fiction doesn’t get any better than this.” - Jeffery Deaver, New York Times-bestselling author of Solitude Creek and The Skin Collector

“Searing, searching, soulful: a major achievement.” - Kathy Reichs, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Speaking in Bones

“A hell-raising thriller…a genuinely exciting narrative driven by strong-willed female characters who can’t wait around until the boys shake the lead out of their shoes.” - New York Times Book Review

Karin Slaughter’s chilling psychological thriller, Pretty Girls, is a relentless and dark exploration of family trauma, devastating betrayal, and the horrifying secrets that can hide behind the veneer of a seemingly perfect life. The novel centers on two estranged sisters, Claire Scott and Lydia Delgado. More than two decades ago, the girls’ family was irrevocably shattered when their eldest sister, nineteen-year-old Julia, vanished without a trace. The unresolved trauma destroyed their parents' marriage and drove a deep wedge between the surviving sisters. Claire dealt with the pain by marrying a wealthy, charismatic architect named Paul Scott, wrapping herself in a bubble of high-society privilege and willful ignorance. Lydia, conversely, spiraled into a life of drug addiction and bad choices, eventually getting clean but remaining fiercely independent, hardened, and completely alienated from Claire’s pristine world.

The fragile status quo of their lives is violently upended when Claire’s husband, Paul, is brutally murdered in an alleyway in what appears to be a random mugging. Devastated, Claire returns to her opulent home to mourn, only to have her entire reality ripped apart. While looking through Paul’s home office, she stumbles upon hidden files on his computer. To her absolute horror, the files contain meticulously categorized snuff films—videos of women being brutally tortured and murdered. The terrifying realization washes over her: the charming, loving husband she slept beside for nearly twenty years was secretly a sadistic, prolific serial killer.

Realizing that Paul’s death was likely not a random robbery, but an assassination connected to his monstrous double life, Claire knows she is in profound danger. She cannot trust the police or her social circle, unsure of who might have been complicit or who is watching her. Out of pure desperation, she turns to the one person she knows has the gritty survival skills she lacks: her estranged sister, Lydia. Despite their years of bitter resentment, the terrifying gravity of Claire’s discovery forces them into a reluctant alliance. Lydia, who has spent her life fighting for survival on the streets, becomes the anchor Claire desperately needs as they plunge into the darkest corners of Paul’s hidden world.

As the sisters begin to investigate, the horrifying scope of Paul’s depravity comes to light. They discover that Paul did not act alone; he was the ringleader of a sick, highly organized syndicate of wealthy, powerful men who shared his twisted desires and produced these horrific videos for profit and pleasure. Furthermore, the timing of Paul’s death coincides with the recent disappearance of another local teenage girl, a case that chillingly echoes the vanishing of their sister Julia twenty-four years earlier. Driven by a desperate need for answers, Claire and Lydia realize their investigation is not just about understanding Paul’s secrets, but finally uncovering the truth about what happened to Julia.

The investigation forces the sisters to retrace the steps of Paul’s past, leading them back to his college days and his deeply disturbing fraternity connections. They slowly piece together a devastating truth: Paul and his accomplices have been hunting women since they were teenagers. In a gut-wrenching twist, the sisters discover that Paul knew Julia before he ever met Claire, and that their beloved older sister was very likely one of his very first victims. The realization that Claire unknowingly married the monster who abducted and murdered her own sister adds a profound, sickening layer of psychological torment to their quest.

The narrative accelerates into a terrifying game of cat and mouse as Paul’s surviving accomplices realize that Claire has uncovered their enterprise. These men, desperate to protect their freedom and their lucrative underground empire, will stop at nothing to silence the sisters. Claire and Lydia track the operation to an isolated, heavily fortified rural property that serves as the syndicate's high-tech torture facility. The climax of the novel is a brutal, high-stakes fight for survival inside this house of horrors. Claire, who has spent her entire adult life being passive and protected, must shed her fragility and tap into a primal, violent strength she never knew she possessed to fight alongside Lydia.

In the harrowing final act, the sisters manage to overcome their attackers, destroying the monstrous operation from the inside out. Within the facility, they finally uncover the irrefutable evidence of Julia’s fate, confirming the worst but finally breaking the decades-long agonizing silence surrounding her disappearance. The novel concludes with the criminal ring dismantled and the immediate threat eliminated, though the emotional scars remain deep. Having survived an unimaginable nightmare, Claire and Lydia emerge forever changed. The horrifying ordeal ultimately burns away their past resentments, leaving them forged together in a profound, unbreakable bond, ready to face the long process of healing side by side.