The Perfect Liar by Thomas Christopher Greene is a psychological thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end. Susannah is a young widow with a son, who marries Max, a brilliant artist who is offered a teaching position at a Vermont college. When a note saying "I know what you did" appears on their front door, it sets of a chain of events that are so unexpected, you will be on the edge of your seat until the last page has been read.

2.5*
After being widowed in her 20’s, Susannah is bringing up her son Freddy on her own. Into her life waltzes Max. And oh, he’s everything she could want in a man! Handsome, caring and only has eyes for her. The topper? He will fit into her 'artsy' world perfectly.

Sure, they met under less than honest circumstances, but maybe she can just shove that little issue aside. When other odd, unexplainable incidents continue popping up, Susannah does her best to squash her fears and trust the man she loves.
The question now… how many warning signs can you ignore? How long do you deny the obvious truth?
Soon enough, Susannah is fearing for her life and her son Freddy.

I was so excited to read this novel. The premise sounded right up my alley for thrillers! Sadly, it started un-raveling right from the start. The story-line seemed disjointed, jumping back and forth too much. There were parts of the story that just didn’t add up. I always do my best to suspend belief when I read a thriller. This one was just too much of a stretch, even for my vivid imagination.

I noticed reviews are extremely mixed for this book. It’s a love it, or.... well you get the picture. Unfortunately I fell into the latter category. If this book piqued you interest enough to read, I hope it works out better for you!

A buddy read with Susanne!

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martin’s Press and Thomas Christopher Greene for an ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.

The Perfect Liar is the first book I have read from Thomas Christopher Greene.

I did find this book to be an enjoyable read and a very engaging story. The only drawback for me was that the chapters were so long. Nonetheless, I do recommend this book.

I'm sorry to say I ended up hating this book. There are no chapters and it makes for a long, drawn out story. I'm always wondering 'should I stop now?' And I didn't always know who was talking at first as there was no clear indication - I hope this is only in the ARC. It was so boring. None of it held my interest. I didn't like the characters. I was hoping it'd pick up. At 44% one of our unlikable main characters goes for a walk at night, picks up a dead fox and carries him home and begins slicing him up in great detail (or I think in great detail, I skipped the huge paragraph) After I skipped that paragraph, we went onto dead rabbits and that's when I decided I was done with the book. I love animals, I don't eat them, and I don't enjoy reading about them being hurt/killed/eaten in great detail. Nothing redeeming about the ending - it was anticlimactic and weird and I'm so happy I skipped all the shit in the middle, but disappointed I didn't start skipping earlier.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC.

Thanks to net galley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book was just ok for me. I hated both of the main characters so I didn’t really care what happened to them. I don’t think I relate well to characters involved in the art world and also they were just kind of strange people. We find out the things Max did in his past pretty early so I thought that took some of the excitement out of it. The end was decent but I just didn’t care that much by the time I got there.

Full of surprises, interesting main characters and a good writing pace.I enjoyed this book.Not giving away any spoilers but well worth a read .If you like to be kept guessing and probably will not be able to work out what is going to happen .Tanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC.

This was the first book I have read from this author. I found it to be an enjoyable read. A good story. Taking away for me from a five-star review was the length of each chapter which led to choppy reading in moving from time frame to time frame as well as lack of understanding as to the why the female police officer was involved at the level she was. Maybe I missed a background story on her.

Both Susannah and Max, the dual narrators of The Perfect Liar, overcame challenging childhoods. Susannah began having panic attacks in college then became sexually involved with her therapist. Max, who never knew his father, spent his impoverished childhood with a neglectful mother only to join a group of “crusty punks” and spend three years homeless migrating with the seasons. But they’ve put these struggles long behind them. Their fulfilling and intimate marriage only blossoms as Max achieves professional success as an artist and secures a prestigious appointment at a university in Burlington, Vermont.

However, when Susannah finds a note on their front door saying I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, the illusions she and Max have so carefully constructed crack under the weight of secrets and lies. After one of Max’s colleagues dies in a tragic fall when they were out trail running together, attention on their family only increases, and the ominous notes continue to arrive.

The Perfect Liar is an easy-to-read, fast-paced thriller with some surprising turns. It also plays with the idea that personalities and life stories are creations as much as a painting on a canvas. But there were aspects of the novel that diminished my enjoyment. In the first half of the book, characters unnecessarily insulted or mis-characterized the mentally ill, bald people, and vegans.

Throughout the book, certain details rang false. After a successful Ted talk, Max received a number of “luxurious” job offers from universities across the country. Usually, the academic job market is much more competitive than represented here, and I’ve never heard of high paying positions in an art department for a visiting professor. In the hospital, a nurse wrote on a clipboard, but it’s rare to find a medical facility that doesn't have electronic records. And a description of search dogs made me think the author isn’t aware of how disciplined and well-trained these working dogs are.

I also had issues with the writing style. The transitions between changing character views were non-existent, though I hope this is an artifact of the reading copy I read and in the finished version, there will be spaces or a bullet/ornament on the page. Often, the author used “I am,” “I will,” and so on when contractions would have provided a more natural rhythm. At times, too, the prose exhibited a lack of polish.

The absolute worst part of the The Perfect Liar, though, was Susannah. She is a female character only a man could write, with a focus on her appearance and cooking skills. For her sex only seems to be about manipulating men or giving men a necessary release rather than any personal pleasure. When the family moved to Vermont, she became a stay-at-home housewife completely abandoning her career. I don't think there is anything wrong with that decision, but it’s a difficult decision to make. Susannah demonstrates none of the conflict I would expect in a woman in her position. And this doesn't even touch upon her seduction of her therapist. Max himself is a sexist prick, but somehow in a book like this, I'm not surprised.

Finally, while the notes were an interesting plot device and provided a sense of mystery, it is unclear what the sender ever hoped to gain from such a passive act.

This review will be posted on www.aimeedars.com on the book's publication date.

what did I just read? I couldn't put this book down. Hands down the best book I read in 2018! This author is new to me, I hope to read more

Creepy is in and this novel just explained why. yes the characters are creepy. No I don;t want to know ether one of them. BUT I did enjoy reading about them !!!

It's always hard for me to write a less than stellar review, but this book just didn't do it for me. There are several components to a good thriller (or even a good book) and too many were missed with this one.
It needs to have suspense, a good storyteller, and a compelling plot. While this book did have suspense, I'm not sure about the storyteller because the plot was compelling but it was lost in the delivery.

Thank you to netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this ebook in exchange for my honest review!

This is a 3.5 or 3.75 for me. I have to admit that the first third was good but felt too familiar to me. The setup with Max being this arch liar and the circumstances of how he became the storied Max W all felt to me like I knew this story. Is there such a thing as deja vu in reading? It was a bit disturbing and distracting. Perhaps I've read so many books with unreliable narrators, sociopaths and duplicitous characters that it set off all my reader senses or the pull off wasn't as deft as it could have been. Perhaps a bit too on the nose so that I knew how the bad thing went down before I read it and also that when Max was so sure he knew the author of the notes, he'd been dead wrong. And Susannah? She was too long a list of quirks with no real sense of a reason or definite sense of self unto herself that there could only be one way she would surface because a secondary main can only cook so many meals, shag so many times and drift from panic to angst only so much and still maintain any sort of relevance.

Still, this was a serious page turner (could not put it down & stayed up late reading) that surprised me in moments and had some quite good reveals (particularly the investigating officer). And the thing with the fox was some serious wtf-ery (very vivid description and well done). Actually, everything from that on was ascending levels of "what the hell did I just read?!" I Loved that some got what they deserved and others... not so much (which made for a scarier ending).

Thanks to the publisher for the Early Review copy.

The premise wasn't very distinguished from other books of the genre, but it still felt like its own book with its own plot twists and turns. I really felt like the author did a good job taking a concept that is a bit overused and making something fresh out of it.

While the premise isn’t necessarily original, it is somewhat engaging with all its twists and turns. The pace wasn’t quite as fast as I’d expected, but it was steady. It found it much easier to hate these characters than love them most of the time. I do wish there had been more about the relationship between Susannah and Freddy. It seems more significant to the story overall than the time it was actually given in the story. The writing style is okay and easy to follow, though the language was more questionable than I prefer. A bit more background on some characters could have been helpful. What I found most annoying was that the book was one long chapter. I’m not sure if that’s how the finished book will be or not, but I didn’t care for that setup.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy from NetGalley, but I wasn’t required to leave a positive review.

Susannah and Max meet and marry after a brief courtship not really knowing anything about each other’s past. But they are in love. Max appears to be a fine man. He loves Freddy, Susannah’s son, without trying to taken his father’s place. He is offered a job at a university in Vermont with a beautiful house as a bonus and life is great......until the notes begin. This book held my attention from start to finish. It really is a well crafted story with some good tense and unexpected moments. I enjoyed the book immensely and would recommend it
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review

2.25 Stars* (rounded down)

Susannah thinks she has met the perfect man and is immediately swept off of her feet. Could it be? When Max W. meets Susannah there is an intense attraction and and a whirlwind romance. Mere months later they are married.

Susannah had no plans to get remarried after losing her first husband Joseph but
Max W., fulfilled something in her she thought she’d never find. Now she and Max, her successful Professor/Artist husband and her son Freddy, live the quiet life in Burlington VT. Max however, is not who he seems. He has been keeping secrets about his identity for decades and it seems as though someone is on to him. Notes are found outside of Max’s and Susannah’s house, The first states: “I Know Who You Are.” Max is scared - and he knows that he must do whatever it takes to keep his identity safe, no matter what it takes.

The premise of “The Perfect Liar” had me from the first and I couldn’t wait to read this book. Unfortunately, there were way too many holes in this novel to save this story for me. In addition, my believability radar was going off the get go and I simply didn’t buy the story. I do however love Vermont and enjoyed the setting immensely! I think that readers who are able to suspend disbelief will really enjoy this novel.

This was a buddy read with Kaceey! So glad we read this one together!

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Thomas Christopher Greene for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

First I want to thank Netgalley for letting me read and review this book. The Perfect Liar is a great book of you liked Behind Closed Doors, B.A. Paris. You just never know what goes on in a marriage when nobody else is around. Everyone has secrets. Some are small some are deadly. I enjoyed this book. Just enough suspense to keep you reading . Never read anything by this author before but will be looking for other books by him.

While the suspense built,, one hoped for a truly clever twist, or a cathartic climax where good triumphs over evil. Instead, the reader is left with cookie cutter secondary characters with no depth, and three main protagonists who leave a bad taste in one's mouth. The ending was too pat and there's no one to root for, including a kid.. Rationalizing murder is not a good thing.

There were aspects of this book that I found refreshing. Instead of breaking up each character's perspective into alternating chapters, he told the husband and wife's stories in alternating paragraphs. It underscored the merger of their lives, the blurriness of their reflective pasts. It was kind of a jumbled mess at some parts, as I couldn't always keep track of who was doing what, but I got used to it. It reflected their lives.

One thing I didn't like: the author's misuse of pronouns. He refers to "she" and "he" within sentences whose structure would attribute such pronouns to a completely different character. It was pervasive throughout the book, which needs some editing.

Also, Freddy. This character is far too weakly described, considering this character's plotline. There needs to be at least 3 more Freddy specific entries.

I like Susannah's backstory a lot. As someone who struggles with daily anxiety, and a former smoker, I think that these traits were presented realistically. Marrying her shrink, and continuing sessions with him, was a foolish thing to do, but also a very human time thing to do. I think this plot worked.

Max's plot, however, was outlandish, especially in the age of the Internet.

Overall, I didn't love this book, but I did find it worth a read.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Perfect Liar by Thomas Christopher Greene is based on secrets and lies...of both a husband and wife. It seemed Max and Susannah had the perfect life, perfect marriage, which included Susannah's son, Freddy, from her first marriage.

Max is a popular Art Speaker at a university in Vermont. Susannah is a stay at home wife and mom, who spends her mornings going out for a run. Everything seems perfect until a note is left on their front door..."Did you get away with it?" Was that meant for Max or Susannah? Neither one knows the secrets the other is hiding, and they are big ones. As time goes on, and another note is recieved, their perfect lives start to unravel.

The book is meant to be a thriller, however I think it fell a little short. I liked the premise of the story, but it was slow moving and predictable at times. I was expected a big surprise, but it never came...I knew what was going to happen.

I would like thank Netgalley and St Martin's Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review, I could only give it 2.5 stars though, I was hoping for more.