Sweet Revenge

I've always felt the job of crime fiction is to hold up a mirror to society and show us not just who we are, but who we want to be. In "The Kept Woman," I write about a sports agent who covers up crimes for his serial rapist client. This isn't a difficult scenario to imagine in the real world, but since art doesn't always have to imitate life, I was able to exact vengeance on everyone involved. I had a character slip antifreeze into the agent's drinks. Ethylene glycol poisoning is extremely slow and lethal--shutting down the victim's organs one by one, keeping him cognizant until the very end so that he knows he's completely helpless. That a woman was the one who poisoned him made the revenge extra sweet. [The ultimate in revenge fiction is Showtimes' " Dexter."]

Karin Slaughter, The New York Times Book Review, July 28, 2019