If the Will Trent series and Grant County books left you needing more unflinching crime fiction with real emotional weight, these 13 authors like Karin Slaughter write the kind of thrillers that stay with you.
Karin Slaughter has sold over 40 million copies of her books in 37 languages. She started with Blindsighted (2001), the first Grant County novel, and hasn’t slowed down since. The Grant County series follows medical examiner Sara Linton and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver in a small Georgia town, while the Will Trent series centres on a GBI agent with a traumatic past. The two series eventually merge, and the Will Trent books became an ABC television series in 2023.
What sets Slaughter apart from most crime fiction writers is her refusal to soften the violence. Her books deal with sexual assault, domestic abuse, and systemic failures in law enforcement with an honesty that many readers find both harrowing and necessary. She doesn’t use violence for shock value — she uses it to show the real consequences of crime on victims, families, and communities. Her female characters are complicated, flawed, and strong in ways that feel earned rather than performative.
For more recommendations, explore our guides to best thriller authors, best suspense authors, and best detective novel series.
Authors Like Karin Slaughter
1. Lisa Gardner
Lisa Gardner’s D.D. Warren series, starting with Alone, follows a Boston detective who is as relentless as any of Slaughter’s protagonists. Gardner also writes standalone thrillers like The Perfect Husband and Right Behind You that combine procedural investigation with psychological complexity.
Gardner shares Slaughter’s willingness to confront the darkest aspects of crime. Her books feature abduction, domestic violence, and serial predators, handled with research-driven authenticity. She consults with law enforcement professionals, and the procedural details in her novels feel genuine rather than borrowed from TV. If you like Slaughter’s ability to balance fast-paced investigation with emotional depth, Gardner hits the same notes.
“Everyone has a story. The trick is figuring out which parts are true.”
Lisa Gardner
2. Tess Gerritsen
Tess Gerritsen is a retired physician, and her Rizzoli & Isles series — starting with The Surgeon — brings medical precision to crime fiction. Detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles make one of the best partnerships in the genre, and Gerritsen’s medical background means the forensic details are uncomfortably accurate.
Gerritsen shares Slaughter’s focus on female protagonists in male-dominated professional worlds. Both writers create women who are competent, driven, and dealing with personal lives that don’t fit neatly around their demanding careers. The Rizzoli & Isles TV series ran for seven seasons, but the books are darker and more complex.
“In the end, what mattered was not how you died but how you lived.”
Tess Gerritsen, The Surgeon
3. Lisa Regan
Lisa Regan’s Josie Quinn series, starting with Vanishing Girls, follows a small-town detective chief in Pennsylvania solving cases that keep getting more personal. Regan publishes at a remarkable pace — she’s put out over 15 books in the series — and each one maintains the same high-tension standard.
Regan shares Slaughter’s small-town setting and her understanding that rural communities have just as much darkness as big cities. Josie Quinn’s traumatic backstory echoes Will Trent’s — both characters are shaped by childhood abuse and use their careers as both purpose and coping mechanism. Regan’s books are shorter and faster than Slaughter’s, making them perfect for readers who want the same intensity in a more compact package.
“The past doesn’t stay buried. Not in a town this small.”
Lisa Regan, Vanishing Girls
4. Karen Rose
Karen Rose writes thick, intense romantic suspense novels where the crime elements are as detailed as any pure thriller. Don’t Tell established her formula: a serial predator, a protagonist connected to the case personally, and a romance that develops under extreme pressure. Her books regularly exceed 500 pages, and every one of those pages earns its place.
Rose shares Slaughter’s ability to write about violence against women without exploiting it. Her victims are fully realized characters, not just plot devices, and the emotional aftermath of crime is treated with the same attention as the investigation itself. The romance elements add a dimension that Slaughter’s books sometimes lack, without sacrificing the thriller tension.
“Survival isn’t about being fearless. It’s about choosing to fight through the fear.”
Karen Rose
5. Melinda Leigh
Melinda Leigh’s Morgan Dane series, starting with Say You’re Sorry, follows a former prosecutor turned amateur investigator in a small New York town. Leigh writes fast, tightly plotted thrillers with strong female leads and enough romance to satisfy readers who want a personal stake alongside the investigation. If you’re working on your own crime fiction, Grammarly can help ensure your procedural details read as cleanly as your plot twists.
Leigh’s Bree Taggert series is equally strong — a new sheriff solving cases in a rural county while dealing with her own family’s violent history. Like Slaughter, Leigh grounds her thrillers in specific communities where everyone knows each other and secrets are expensive to keep.
“In a small town, the truth has a way of finding you.”
Melinda Leigh
6. Robert Dugoni
Robert Dugoni’s Tracy Crosswhite series, starting with My Sister’s Grave, follows a Seattle homicide detective whose sister was murdered when they were teenagers. The cold case that haunts Tracy drives the first novel, and the series expands into procedural investigations that are methodical, realistic, and emotionally grounded.
Dugoni shares Slaughter’s interest in how personal trauma shapes professional obsession. Tracy Crosswhite and Will Trent are both detectives who bring their own damage to every case, and both series use that damage as a source of insight rather than just backstory. Dugoni’s writing is clean and efficient, and his Seattle setting is as vivid as Slaughter’s Atlanta.
“The dead deserve the truth. It’s the living who can’t always handle it.”
Robert Dugoni
7. Mary Burton
Mary Burton writes romantic suspense with a heavy emphasis on serial killers and forensic investigation. I’m Watching You is typical of her approach: a law enforcement protagonist, a predator with a pattern, and a connection between the two that gets personal. She’s published over 30 novels across multiple series.
Burton shares Slaughter’s Southern settings (many of her books are set in Virginia and Texas) and her unflinching treatment of violent crime. Her heroines are often forensic specialists — medical examiners, profilers, crime scene analysts — whose expertise makes them targets as well as investigators. The romance elements are integrated seamlessly rather than bolted on.
“The most dangerous predators are the ones who look just like everyone else.”
Mary Burton
8. Allison Brennan
Allison Brennan’s Lucy Kincaid series, starting with Love Me to Death, follows an FBI agent who survived a brutal attack as a teenager and now works sex crimes and missing persons cases. The series spans over a dozen books and tracks Lucy’s development from victim to investigator with real psychological nuance.
Brennan shares Slaughter’s commitment to putting her protagonists through hell and showing how they rebuild. Lucy Kincaid’s backstory is as dark as Will Trent’s, and both characters use their trauma as fuel for their work. Brennan writes fast — multiple books per year — without sacrificing the emotional complexity that makes the series compelling.
“Justice isn’t about revenge. It’s about making sure it doesn’t happen to someone else.”
Allison Brennan
9. J.D. Robb
J.D. Robb is the pen name Nora Roberts uses for the In Death series, which began with Naked in Death in 1995 and has exceeded 50 books. Set in a near-future New York City, the series follows Lieutenant Eve Dallas solving homicides while dealing with her traumatic past and her marriage to billionaire Roarke.
The In Death series shares Slaughter’s formula of a damaged investigator whose personal history directly impacts their work. Eve Dallas was abused as a child and became a homicide cop as a direct result — her drive to give victims justice is personal, not abstract. Roberts/Robb’s output is staggering, and the series has maintained quality across decades.
“The dead were her priority. The dead were hers.”
J.D. Robb, Naked in Death
10. Iris Johansen
Iris Johansen’s Eve Duncan series, starting with The Face of Deception, follows a forensic sculptor who reconstructs the faces of unidentified dead. Eve’s own daughter was kidnapped and presumably killed, and the search for Bonnie’s remains drives the early books in the series.
Johansen shares Slaughter’s ability to build a long-running series around a single character’s evolving trauma and recovery. The Eve Duncan books span over 20 novels, and the emotional core — a mother searching for her lost child — never loses its power. Johansen writes page-turners with genuine heart.
“The dead need someone to speak for them. That’s what I do.”
Iris Johansen
11. Linda Castillo
Linda Castillo’s Kate Burkholder series, starting with Sworn to Silence, follows a police chief in an Ohio Amish country who was raised Amish herself and left the community after a traumatic event. When a serial killer strikes the Amish community, Kate’s dual identity makes her both the ideal investigator and a suspect.
Castillo’s series is unique in crime fiction, and it shares Slaughter’s interest in closed communities where secrets fester. The Amish setting provides the same kind of claustrophobic atmosphere that Slaughter creates in small-town Georgia. Kate Burkholder is one of the most distinctive detective protagonists in the genre.
“I know what it’s like to live in two worlds and belong to neither.”
Linda Castillo, Sworn to Silence
12. Kendra Elliot
Kendra Elliot’s Mercy Kilpatrick series, starting with A Merciful Death, follows an FBI agent who returns to her survivalist family’s community in rural Oregon to investigate murders. Elliot’s writing is fast-paced, her settings are atmospheric, and her protagonists carry the kind of complicated baggage that Slaughter excels at writing.
Elliot frequently collaborates with Melinda Leigh, and both writers share Slaughter’s Pacific Northwest and rural small-town sensibilities. The Mercy Kilpatrick series is particularly strong because the survivalist community provides a unique backdrop for crime fiction — a world where distrust of authority is a way of life, not just a plot device.
“Coming home meant facing everything I’d spent years running from.”
Kendra Elliot
13. Rachel Caine
Rachel Caine (who passed away in 2020) wrote across multiple genres, but her crime thrillers — particularly the Stillhouse Lake series starting with Stillhouse Lake — are her most Slaughter-adjacent work. Gwen Proctor discovers her husband is a serial killer and must rebuild her life while protecting her children and dealing with the public’s conviction that she was complicit.
Caine’s Stillhouse Lake series shares Slaughter’s interest in how violence ripples outward through families and communities. Gwen is a fascinating protagonist — a woman who has to prove her innocence while learning self-defense, firearms, and digital security to protect herself from both her ex-husband’s fans and potential copycats.
“I used to think the worst thing that could happen was finding out who my husband really was. I was wrong.”
Rachel Caine, Stillhouse Lake