Pieces of Her

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter was published in 2018 and became an instant New York Times bestseller. Slaughter is the author of over 20 novels, and is one of the top American thriller authors today, selling over 40 million copies of her books in 120 countries. Her stories are known for having relentless momentum and tightly woven plots. Pieces of Her was adapted into a limited series by Netflix, starring Toni Colette and Bella Heathcote, in 2020. The sequel, Girl, Forgotten, was published in 2022 and features one of the main characters, Andy Oliver, two years after the events of the first novel. Other works by this author include Pretty Girls (2015), The Good Daughter (2017), and False Witness (2021).

This guide is based on the ebook edition, published in 2018 by William Morrow.

Content Warning: Pieces of Her includes a mass shooting, death by suicide, a miscarriage, and general violence and murder. It also uses offensive terms for Black people and gay men.

Plot Summary

Pieces of Her is a novel comprising two narrative threads, one that spans one week in 2018, and another spanning just over a week in 1986. These threads are bookended by a prologue featuring an unknown narrator, and an epilogue taking place in 2018.

The 2018 narrative features Andy Oliver, a 31-year-old woman living in an apartment over her mother’s garage. She and her mother, Laura, are having breakfast at a local diner in Belle Isle, Georgia, when a man enters the restaurant and shoots two women. Andy, who is a police dispatcher and still in uniform, attracts the attention of the man, who demands that she shoot him. Laura puts herself between the man and Andy, and when he tries to stab her, puts her hand up in self-defense. The knife goes through Laura’s hand, which she then uses to stab the man in the throat. When the shooter moves, the knife rips free of his throat and he dies.

Later, after Laura is released from the hospital, an intruder breaks into her house and confronts her. To protect her mother, Andy kills the man with a frying pan. Laura gives Andy a bag containing money and a phone, directs her to a storage space in another town, and tells her to run. When Andy arrives at the storage space, she finds a car, nearly a quarter of a million dollars, and false identification with her mother’s photo. She also finds a photo of herself with her grandparents, which has obviously been doctored. As Andy continues her journey, she decides that, instead of following her mother’s orders and hiding in Idaho, she is going to instead follow clues to solve the mystery of her mother’s past.

Andy goes to Austin, Texas to find Paula Kunde, whose name had come up in the confrontation between Laura and the intruder. At first, Paula threatens Andy, but then gives her a dollar bill, the name Clara Bellamy, and a place in Illinois to continue her investigation. Andy finds Clara, who tells her that her mother is actually Jane Queller, and had been a famous concert pianist. Clara’s husband, Edwin, comes home, but before Andy can get more answers, Paula arrives, kills Edwin, injures Clara, and injures Andy. Paula then gives Andy more information about her mother’s past: Laura was in a terrorist group with Paula in the 1980s, before she betrayed the group in order to make a deal with authorities. Using the phone Laura gave Andy when she left, Paula demands that Laura bring information that will get their leader, Nick, out of prison. She holds Andy hostage until Laura gets there. When Laura arrives, she and Paula struggle, and Laura kills Paula.

The 1986 narrative is woven throughout the 2018 timeline, and tells the story of Jane Queller. However, the narrative begins with a woman named Laura Juneau. Laura Juneau is at a conference in Oslo, impersonating a Dr. Alex Maplecroft. She plans to appear on a panel with Jane Queller’s father Martin Queller, a famous businessman. Jane, her brother Andrew, and her boyfriend, Nick Harp, are all at the conference and know Laura, but pretend not to. Laura and Jane converse in a bar before the conference begins; the former then goes to the bathroom and retrieves a bag taped behind a toilet, which is supposed to contain dye packs. During the panel discussion, Laura, whose family died as a result of the policies of Queller’s group homes, opens her bag to retrieve a gun. She shoots Martin Queller, and then herself.

Five days later, the FBI interview the Queller children, Jasper, Andrew, and Jane, as well as Jane’s boyfriend Nick. Jane realizes that the FBI know they were involved with the shooting, a political statement by the Army of the Changing World led by Nick, of which Jane and Andrew are members. Jane and Andrew go to a safe house where the rest of the group are waiting, and where they are holding the real Dr. Alex Maplecroft (whom Laura Juneau had been impersonating). When Maplecroft nearly escapes, Nick kills her and the FBI arrive. Nick, Jane, Andrew, and Paula escape and drive to another safe house in Chicago.

While at the safe house, Jane discovers that her brother Andrew is dying of AIDS. Nick plans to travel to Chicago next, but Jane chooses to stay with Andrew. The former beats and strangles her until she passes out. When Jane comes to, Nick has left. Jane takes Andrew to the hospital and stays by his side until he dies. She then makes a deal with the authorities, exchanging information regarding the group’s planned bombing in New York City for reduced prison time and entry into the witness protection program.

In the epilogue (which takes place in 2018), one month after Laura (Jane Queller) kills Paula, she visits Nick in prison. She is working with the US Marshals in an effort to trick Nick into confessing that he was behind Paula’s attack on Edwin, Clara, and Andy. This meeting is the first time Laura has seen Nick in 30 years, and the first time Andy has seen her birth father. Laura is able to get a confession from Nick, which will result in his transfer to a maximum security prison and no parole. She is finally free of her past.