Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaung. I want you to think back to your childhood for a second.

And remember, was there a big news story that shaped your life? Something going on that maybe you didn't pay much attention to, but you noticed the grownups around you being enraptured by?

I bring this up because Karen Slaughter, the prolific crime writer, grew up outside of Atlanta.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly grew up at the same exact time in Atlanta proper.

And in this interview about Slaughter's new book, We Are All Guilty Here.

The two of them got to talking about the Atlanta child murders, a two-year

period where the Atlanta police kept finding bodies of children. It's grim and grisly stuff.

And Slaughter talks about how, as a kid, that moment shaped her, both as a reader and as a writer.

That's after the break.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Crime fiction queen Karen Slaughter's new book opens on a hot, hot summer night in Georgia.

It is Madison Del Rimple's 15th birthday. She's got a big

night planned with her best friend, and then both girls disappear. The police find their bikes

abandoned, glow in the dark beads still snapped onto the spokes, pink streamers, still hanging

from the handlebars, then the police

find blood. All that, plus the title, we are all guilty here, clue you in that there will be no

easy or happy answers to what's happened to the girls. Karen Slaughter, welcome. Thank you.

You have been writing crime novels for how many years now?

Oh, boy, do we have to say, 25 years.

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