Criminal
Will Trent is a brilliant agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Newly in love, he is beginning to put a difficult past behind him. Then a local college student goes missing, and Will is inexplicably kept off the case by his supervisor and mentor, deputy director Amanda Wagner. Will cannot fathom Amanda’s motivation until the two of them literally collide in an abandoned orphanage they have both been drawn to for different reasons. Decades before, when his father was imprisoned for murder, this was Will’s home. It appears that the case that launched Amanda’s career forty years ago has suddenly come back to life—and it involves the long-held mystery of Will’s birth and parentage. Now these two dauntless investigators will each need to face down demons from the past if they are to prevent an even greater terror from being unleashed.
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Karin Slaughter
Crime is never black and white in Karin Slaughter’s world—it’s raw, relentless, and deeply personal. With a scalpel-sharp precision that has become her signature, Slaughter dissects the darkest corners of human nature, crafting thrillers that are as psychologically rich as they are unflinchingly brutal. Her stories don’t just unfold; they unravel, layer by layer, exposing the complexity of justice, trauma, and survival.
Born in Georgia, Slaughter grew up surrounded by Southern storytelling, a tradition that infused her work with a deep sense of place and history. She credits her early fascination with crime to a childhood spent in the shadow of real-life violence. The South, with its haunting past and tangled moral codes, became the perfect backdrop for her novels—where the sins of the past bleed into the present and justice is rarely simple.
Will Trent
In the shadows of Atlanta, where justice is never black and white, an investigator like no other untangles the city’s darkest crimes. The Will Trent series plunges readers into the world of a man shaped by a brutal past—an orphan who grew up invisible, now wielding his uncanny ability to read between the lines where others see nothing. Will Trent doesn’t just solve cases; he exposes the fractures beneath polite society, uncovering secrets that fester in silence.
Will Trent consists of twelve primary books, and includes two additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.

