I thought I had this mystery figured out but I did not see that ending coming. I was so mad at one character and then they did not deserve my ire at all. Joe is an interesting character & did not deserve the mess he found himself in. He’s just a regular guy: teacher, Dad, husband & friend. I really liked the whole family.

The pace of the story was excellent and as the mystery unwinds the story becomes crazy and wild. I really enjoyed it!

Thanks to NetGalley and St, Martin’s Press for the chance to read this book.

LIES - T.M. Logan

COMPELLING - 4 stars

Plot - 4 stars - When Joe happens to see his wife in a heated argument, he confronts the family friend she was arguing with and accidentally knocks him down. After caring for his toddler's asthma attack, he looks for the friend but can't find him. Thus begins the mystery.

Writing - 4 stars - I was caught up in the story from the first page and become more enmeshed as the book went on. Logan was able to build the suspense so gradually that I didn't realize how intense it felt until I put the book down from time to time to take a breather. Very effective.

Characters - 4 stars - Joe is a likeable character, a steady and nice man who doesn't aspire to greatness but loves his family and is contented with his average life. Mel, his wife, is more of a go-getter. She seems to be happily married, but unbeknownst to him, she's got a lack of confidence and contentment that is digging holes in their marriage. And the lies begin, much to his shock when they start coming to light. Ben is the shadowy figure that we meet briefly at the beginning, but he becomes the main character of the story as we watch Joe try to discover his whereabouts as well as his endgame.

Title - 4 stars - Joe's marriage and, in fact, his whole life turns out to be a collection of lies that he had previously had no idea about.

Cover - 4 stars - A slightly sinister looking cover.

Overall - 4 stars - This was a thriller that kept me turning the pages throughout. The suspense was built slowly and cautiously, until I suddenly realized that I was tense and worried on Joe's behalf. Then I felt compelled to keep turning the pages to discover what Joe would do next to clear his name. I shook my head many times at the cleverness of the scheme while being amazed that it was so relatively easy to completely manipulate the police and the public. I was captivated by this book and couldn't put it down. I will definitely look for more from this author.

I thought it was a decent book. It kept me wanting to know what happened. I figured somethings out along the way. It was interesting to see how it unraveled.

Logan’s domestic thriller, “Lies,” is a fast-paced thriller with tension building step by step till it’s so tight it’s ready to explode. It’s set in modern London in a world of cellphones and Facebook and humdrum domestic lives of shlepping kids around. But it’s a works that can come crashing down so fast you don’t have time to take a breath. It’s hard To put down and will keep your attention.

Poor hapless Joe. His whole life shatters into a thousand pieces as the trap draws tighter and tighter around him. He thought everything was peachy. Although, as a reader, you never fully buy into Joe’s naivety, particularly when he barely raises his voice when he finds out Mel betrayed him over and over again. Yes, he’s a beta, not an alpha, but it simply doesn’t ring true.

Finally, as a whole, the plot twists seem a bit too forced, particularly regarding the resolution. Nevertheless, it’s a quick read that will certainly hold your attention.

I really like this book it was pretty good easy read definitely recommend
The book grabbed me from the the beginning to the end

***** Review Contains Spoilers *****

I had a hard time getting through this book. The book was written well but every single character in was annoying and unbelievable. I wanted to slap Joe a couple of times. This book gripped me within the first chapter but it was down hill from there on. You wouldn't see the ending coming but by the time you get there, you have almost given up caring and just want to be done with it.

When my spouse tells me that I am plain and boring, do I really think we still have a future together? Would I really sleep in the same bed with her? When the cops are looking for a proof-of-life, why don't you get your wife tell the cops she still has contact with him?

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and T.M. Logan for a copy of "Lies" in exchange of a fair and honest review.

Joe was a happy man, great family, job where he's respected, and a wonderful place to live. Then, his world unravels as he learns about his wife's lies. Can he pull everything back together?

I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review.

I didn't love this book at first - it took me a little while to get into it but once I did the plot line was very intriguing. I didn't want to put it down because I had to find out what would happen next. And there was a great plot twist at the end that I didn't really see coming. It was just so sad though - without giving the ending away I just felt so sad for Joe. he honestly was just a nice guy and the police attacking him every second as well as just what he went through on a personal level through the story was so depressing to me. It was a great thriller though with a very good twist so if you like suspense novels this is a great one to read!

This book was a bit of a slow burn but definitely kept me intrigued. I didn't guess the twists so that is always a plus for me!

TM Logan - I am so glad I discovered your books, now if the US could just keep up with the publication of them so I can spend a bit less money and not have to shop them from the UK :)

LIES was a gasp-a-minute book, and I couldn't put it down until the end.

Lies by T.M. Logan was given to me thru NetGalley for an honest review.
A seemingly innocent moment, changes the course of families, loved ones, and basic trust. Not only that, but a previous moment in time makes the forgotten feelings felt again. However, as the story moves along, things are not as they appear to be, they are much darker under the surface. Lies is truly a thrilling, page turning, well plotted novel. Not to mention, one person they overlook could be and be the downfall of both.
Thank you, T.M Morgan for writing this plot twisting, suspenseful novel. Once again, thank you NetGalley for an ARC of this creation.

Wow, that was an ending I didn’t see coming. I love being surprised by the outcome of a book and this one provided it. The story moves along at a fairly good pace and is well written.

I must say I did get bogged down a bit but am glad I finished it.

A really good book.

I love thrillers and this one did not disappoint. An optimistic husband decides to surprise his wife at the suggestion of his young son when they spot her car. He happens upon seeing his wife with another man they know and when he is confronted, everything suddenly changes. The story is engaging and you find yourself cheering the poor guy on and hoping that he makes it out okay. The ending took a rather surprising turn but since by then, you really want everything to work out for the main character, it was a little disappointing. Overall, it was a good satisfying read.

“It’s sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along.”
—England Dan & John Ford Coley

INTRODUCING JOE LYNCH.

Deception will always exist: whether it exists in a fictional world or a nonfictional world. That’s just life. People are not always what they appear to be. Many people work hard to put on airs, to present themselves to others through a filtered lens of distorted delusion. They do it to deceive or mislead. And the stars of the psychological thriller currently under review are no exception: for they are indeed deceitful and hateful and inexorable and wicked.

Come along, if you will, on a journey to a quiet and quaint little London town where there lives a man named Joseph Michael Lynch. A former athlete (hockey player) who now works as an English teacher at Haddon Park Academy, thanks to a sustained injury that put an end to any hopes of being drafted into the NHL, Joe is married to an attractive attorney named Melissa. And the couple shares an adorable four-year-old son named William. His doting dad, Joe, likes to call him “Wills” or “Big man” on these pages. And their bond is touching. Joe Lynch loves his wife Mel and their too-cute-for-words son, even to his earthly death. But are those adoring sentiments mutual?

THE DRIVE HOME.

The turmoil begins to unfold during a casual drive home. Joe has just picked up little William from his preschool. William, an undying fan of model toy cars—the tyke has tons of them—is the first to spot the gleaming and expensive VW Golf on the other side of the highway junction. The car belongs to his mum. And the child tells his dad, excitedly, It’s a Mummy car! Look, Daddy! On immediate inspection, Joe Lynch sees, for himself, that the shiny, powder blue VW Golf, out on the same road, is that belonging to Mel. But where is she going? Shouldn't she be at the office, meeting with a client perhaps? Why not follow her to find out? It will be a pleasant surprise, yes?

THE TURMOIL BEGINS TO UNFOLD.

Ben Delaney is the founder of Zero One Zero Limited and a self-made millionaire. An arrogant, pompous, proud, and detestable overachiever, Ben Delaney is London’s very own Silicon Valley. And what exactly does Ben Delaney do? The famed hacker develops mobile apps, including a series of popular game apps for young adults, particularly teenage boys. Ben Delaney is a highly successful businessman, albeit a thief and a liar. Ben Delaney is also the man with whom Joe Lynch catches his wife Mel embroiled in what appears to be an intensely disturbing dispute at the Premier Inn hotel after he and William follow her there. They’re all old friends: Ben and his classically beautiful wife Beth, and Joe and his oh-so-gorgeous wife, Mel. Or at least that’s what good old Joe, a “classic underachiever” as far as Big Ben is concerned, thinks. That is until he catches Ben and Mel in their heated exchange. Bemused by what he has just witnessed, Joe confronts Ben in the parking ramp of the Premier Inn. Joe wants to question his supposed better about the conversation Ben has just had with Mel when Ben resorts to hurling a barrage of insults at him. The two men begin to scuffle, the successful multimillionaire tech wiz versus the lowly and pathetic schoolteacher. Physically, the “lowly and pathetic” schoolteacher—a former hockey player, mind you—has the greater size and packs a more powerful punch. And he soon levels the much smaller tech geek with one shove over a concrete parking block. But that is only after the much smaller, haughty tech geek strikes the first blow.

Enter fear, that old, dispiriting, and debilitating ghoul of a heifer who arrives just in time to instill a scrambled brand of paranoia and anxiety into the mind of our marked (leading) man. First, Ben is laid out flat on the concrete, bleeding from his ear after smashing his head. He’s not moving. And second, little William, who was born with a terrible scratch on his bronchial tubes, suddenly suffers a violent asthma attack right there within the enclosure of the Premier Inn parking ramp. The unholy Ben lies as dead, and innocent little William can’t breathe. The worst is that William’s inhaler is missing. Joe cannot find the inhaler anywhere. It suddenly disappeared from his car. Added to the chaos is the disappearance of Ben Delaney. Ben is nowhere in sight when Joe returns to the scene of their physical altercation only moments earlier. And neither is Joe’s cell phone, which he dropped during the heated wrestle.
It is the same cell phone from which he later receives a taunting message—posted from his account—on the world’s most famous social media platform for all to see. But who is the caller? Who has Joe’s cell? Is it Ben? And where is Mel? What was she doing with Ben at the Premier Inn? The caller is someone who knows Joe’s most intimate secrets. The caller is someone who has it in for Joe. And the ruthless caller is now prepared to frame Joe for the perfect murder.

AN AFTERTHOUGHT.

Following his dear wife into the Premier Inn hotel on that fateful afternoon would signal the beginning of Joe’s worst nightmare—and quite possibly the end of his quiet, average life.

THE SPIRIT WITHIN.

Coiled together like a brood of scaly vipers, mayhem, madness, fear, and dread slither into the plot in unison. These integrate themselves in a maniacal game of cat-and-mouse, where covetous adulterers scheme with their loins and where hatred and revenge both lay cruel and conjoined. Here, a man’s enemies will exert themselves in a devious effort to lay hold on his eternal soul.

Come along, if you will, on a double-decker bus ride through a dark, narrow, and claustrophobic tunnel of crookedly-paved streets. Here, one man’s bloody malevolence, dimly lit with one woman’s bloody betrayal, battle with another man’s constant struggle to avoid falling over into a bloody ditch—dug especially for him.

THE ENCAPSULATION.

Proficient works of fiction are not apt to leave themselves vulnerable to prediction. And Lies, a psychological thriller as maliciously mysterious as they come, is without question one such composition. The plot fillets the psyche with scalpel-sharp perplexity as it elects to tease and tantalate its viewer—playing one mind game after another—while constantly stringing the same along and misleading them into an endless stream of dead ends.

More mystical is the shady supporting cast of this excellent anecdote, a two-faced troupe of characters impressively performed by the following:

• Beth Delaney is a failed actress and the tall, dangerously elegant, and pitifully dependent wife to Ben. A woman dreadfully scorned, her once flawless and porcelain surface begins to crack, revealing the hideous eyesore formerly hidden beneath.

• Alice Delaney is the fourteen-year-old-going-on-twenty-five-year-old daughter of Ben and Beth Delaney. She also sparkles in her role as the babysitter for little William and a brilliant, however despondent loner.

• Alex Kolnik is a former employee turned archenemy of Ben Delaney.

• Steven Beecham is the enigmatic and brutal casino bouncer. Master of the iron bar beatdown, Steven Beecham is one with whom the alpha male Ben Delaney keeps a close association.

• Detective Chief Inspector Marcus Naylor plays a dreadful person holding a law badge. No-nonsense in his professional approach, Marcus Naylor is the law-enforcing Rottweiler assigned to investigate Joe Lynch for murder.

• Detective Sergeant Rachel Redford is Marcus Naylor’s tried and trusted work partner.

• Carl Draper is the annoying—and loathsome—assistant head in charge of pastoral and disciplinary issues at Haddon Park Academy.

• Peter Larssen co-stars as the sole partner of his law firm and nemesis to DCI Marcus Naylor. Much like Naylor, Peter Larssen is no-nonsense and proves it gladly in the wake of his acquisition by the hunted and haunted Joe Lynch.

• Mark Ruddington is a former college mate of Melissa Lynch who would most certainly remain in her past—were it not for the most famous social media platform in the world and its now legendary “friend requests.”

Yoked with this first-rate cast are a few individuals who, while only featured in bit parts, add a unique spice to the stew of this atrocious storyline. They include PC Khan, who gets the big investigation ball rolling; DC Redford, an additional assistant to Marcus Naylor, and Peter, Joe’s so-called best friend from college.

RECOMMENDED THRILLS.

Cocooned in a sticky web of heart-palpitating suspense, Lies is a work of fiction that will simultaneously intrigue its reader, entice its reader, aggravate its reader, and frustrate its reader. With a stunning body text, the narrative is superior in both structure and dialogue, basking in the glowing perfection of a beautifully poetic delivery: for the effort is nothing short of outstanding. And it would be well with its admirable author, T.M. Logan, to beam with pride as the result of his completing it.

My fellow bookies, especially those of you mystery-thriller purists, consider Lies—a work of literature that is downright treacherous, scandalous, and demented—highly recommended and commended. For from beginning to end, the double-edged blade of its plot is one that your reader will never see coming until after it has cut your psyche clean through.

Five sleight-of-hand stars.



REVIEWER’S NOTE: It is my kind pleasure to thank St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan, as well as NetGalley, for the advanced review copy of Lies in exchange for my honest review.

Analysis of Lies by T.M. Logan is courtesy of the Reviews by Cat Ellington book series.

Date of Review: Saturday, October 27, 2018

Great twisty story, great read for a rainy weekend, was able to finish it in one weekend. I will admit that I stayed up way too late to finish, couldn't wait for the morning to find out the ending.

One day was all it took to read this thriller. TM Logan's "Lies" sucked me in from the start, as Joe discovers his wife Melissa meeting with a mutual friend at a nearby hotel and a terrible chain of events are set into motion, forcing Joe to choose between his wife's possible lover and his son, who is having an asthma attack in the back of his car. The entire novel is filled with twists and turns and an ending I didn't see coming at all.. Overall, loved the fast pace and short chapters of this book!

<strong>Unexpected surprise</strong>

I was beginning to lose hope with this one. The story started to drag somewhere in the middle and it was more my commitment to finish novels past the halfway point than my like for the plot itself that kept me going but I'm glad I did!

Just one little lie and everything spirals out of control— terrific read, what a pleasant surprise.

I'm a sucker for fast-paced, page turning suspense, and I love stories that have a big twist. Lies was marketed as all those things, and I was excited to finally dive in to it. Unfortunately, I never really found my groove with this book. It started out okay, but it didn't take long for me to lose interest. I found the story to actually be pretty cookie-cutter, and I ended up having to schedule reading it, at least 30 minutes a day, until I finished. I'm sure there are plenty of readers who will enjoy this book, but when you read as many thrillers as I do, it takes something fresh and shocking to really make a great read. The originality just wasn't there for me.
2 stars

I really liked this book. It was thrilling, lots of twists and turns and it kept me guessing the whole time. Definite recommend!

This book starts off with a bang, with Joe Lynch and his son William, spotting Joe's wife's on the freeway and deciding it would be fun to follow her. When they see where she is going, something happens that sets this story in motion and doesn't let up until the end.

This was an entertaining story, that had twists that kept coming. I really liked Joe and his family. I felt terrible for Joe as kept getting accused of crimes he didn't commit. The evidence kept piling up and the threats to his family and happiness kept coming. As I read, I knew something wasn't right, I knew that at least one person was lying, probably more. The storyline of how technology is used in this story is a bit scary. With computers being hijacked, cell phones disappearing and data being mined, it was obvious that someone with a superior knowledge of these devices could wreak havoc on someone's life. I thought I knew what was happening and was partially right, but the ending had one final twist that left me satisfied. There were parts of this book that did go slowly,and some very unlikable characters, but there was a lot of tension with some characters I was rooting for. All in all, I enjoyed this one. This was my first book by T.M. Logan and I will definitely read more.