Reviews

This is Why We Lied by Karin Slaughter

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goyvonreads's review against another edition

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dark sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

cristella's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes

4.0

rbharath's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I read and loved “After that Night” (Will Trent #11) last year. At that time, friends on goodreads did inform me that I should start with the Grant County series and then move to the Will Trent series. While there are many books to catch-up on (which I certainly will), I jumped to this one when I saw the chance. This, like the previous one, has a great plot, strong procedural work and excellent character development.

Will, special agent with the Georgia Bureau of investigation, and Sara, medical examiner are just married and on their honeymoon to the Alpine family lodge. This is a much recommended large beautiful place run by the McAlpine family since generations. Guests are encouraged to take in the beauty of nature and Wifi is generally disallowed. There are 4 families currently at the lodge (others being Frank, Keisha, Drew, Monica, Landry, Gordon), besides the family & people who work there. Cecil (Papa), is the oldest member, currently confined to a wheelchair after an accident. His wife is Bitty. Their children are Mercy & Chris. Dave, after a difficult childhood, landed up at the farm when he was young and is taken in by the family. Dave & Mercy were married, and have a son Jon. They are now separated. Delilah is Cecil’s sister and had tried to take custody of Jon after Mercy was in a serious accident, and had addiction problems. Cecil and a few others are in favour of selling the place, and a couple of potential investors are also visiting. Mercy is dead against the sale, and insists she will do her best to stop it. Dave and Will had as children being in a home together and had seen a lot of bad times. Dave turned into a bully (he was called ‘Jackal’), and derisively called Will ‘Trashcan’. He recognizes Will immediately when he sees him.

But a quiet honeymoon it is not to be for Will & Sara – one night as they are relaxing near a pond, they hear a scream. They split up, unclear where the scream came from. Will hears more cries and finds a cottage on fire and Mercy McAlpine in the water, blood oozing out of her body. He later realizes that she has been stabbed multiple times, and also hurts himself as he touches the knife still in her body. She whispers a few words to him and dies, which do not help in understanding who stabbed her. Will and Sara swing into action, assembling all the people and interviewing them after revealing their identity. Will also gets in touch with his boss Amanda, and work partner Faith Mitchell who come over. They convince the local Sheriff that they be allowed to be involved in the case.

Will, Sara, Amanda & Faith uncover a murky story with several happenings of the past leading to the murder of Mercy. If the previous book explored Sara’s past traumas, this story does that with Will. The methodical way in which the team pieces together the full story makes for great reading. There are triggers – abuse & more, but it does not get very bad, and should not be a problem for most readers.

I absolutely love Will and Sara’s character – both finding love & purpose to rebuild their lives and help others. The contrast in their characters is excellently developed, Will – dyslexic in childhood, reticent and poor with small talk, brave; Sara – more open & social, as focused on her work and strongly supportive of Will.

There are some twists at the end, which I felt were unnecessary and do not add much to the story, but decided not to reduce my rating for it.

Thanks to Netgalley, HarperCollins and the author for a free electronic review copy.

jayneyh314's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

McAlpine Lodge seems like the perfect place for Sara and Will to spend their honeymoon. A remote mountain getaway with all the luxurious trappings where nobody can reach them. Except everyone on the mountain seems to be hiding something. Manager, Mercy McAlpine, has threatened to blow the whole thing out of the water and take the entire corrupt family down after years spent playing the doting daughter. Just hours later Will finds her, dying after a vicious attack, but with no shortage of suspects can he get to the bottom of this case.

“This Is Why We Lied” is due to be published by Harper Collins on 20 June and I received an eArc via NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.

Karin Slaughter has become an auto-read author for me and this book shows exactly why.

What we basically have is a locked room mystery, on a mountain where pretty much everyone is hiding something and most of them have motive to want Mercy dead. Slaughter weaves her story with such ease I just couldn’t stop reading every time I picked it up.

It’s very much a case based book. Poor Will and Sara are supposed to be on their honeymoon and end up getting embroiled in the case so there isn’t much going on for them personally in this one. I do always find it interesting when we meet characters from Will’s past so that was good for me.

There are twists galore, not all of which I saw coming, I’m not gonna lie. Slaughter’s writing just has this incredible way of drawing you in and just when you think you’ve figured out what’s going on she throws something else in the mix.

I really felt for Mercy. The more that was revealed about her life, the sadder I felt for her. It’s hard to say too much really without ruining the story.

There’s a lot of great moments between Faith and Will as well. I love their dynamic. Although now I’ve started watching the tv version I have to keep reminding myself that book Faith is very different to TV Faith!

There are a lot of issues covered in this one that could be very triggering for some people. There’s lots of instances of abuse (physical, sexual and emotional) and domestic violence and although Slaughter doesn’t write this in a sensational way and it is handled quite sensitively I would imagine it could still be quite triggering so please be mindful of that.

If you’re a fan of crime thrillers I would highly recommend this. I have no complaints at all.

liseyp's review

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dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Thank you to the author, publishers HarperCollins and NetGalley UK for access to this as an advance reader’s ebook. This is an honest and voluntary review.

Will Trent and Sara Linton’s honeymoon turns into a murder investigation when they find the manager of the rural Georgia getaway they’re staying at stabbed and dying at the water’s edge.

Karin Slaughter somehow manages to write about the darkest and most disturbing traits of humanity while simultaneously writing the most heartwarming and hopeful, yet realistic, relationship between the two main protagonists. This is Why We Lied is another great example of this.

I guessed fairly early on at one aspect of the plot that isn’t confirmed until the end, but that was just the result of being a long-term reader of this author. I just thought of the darkest place this story could go and knew that if anyone would go there, and do it convincingly, it would be Karin. Still it managed to go darker than I’d even imagined and deliver a compelling read that I cannot recommend highly enough.