I requested this book based on the title and I was not let down! I have never read this author but I will definitely be looking for his other titles.

Joette Harper is down on her luck, working a dead end job as a hotel clerk at a roadside motel. She is widowed and takes care of her mother who suffers from dementia.
Joette witnesses a car crash in front of the motel, rushing to assist the driver she sees he is suffering from a gun shot wound. He hands her a duffel bag full of money- money that would change her life
Soon she realizes the money didn't belong to the driver and the real owner wants it back. He has no idea Joette even exists. Joette thinks the cash belongs to her because she needs it. She is not giving the money back under any circumstances.

This book was fast paced and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. Such an original plot, I really enjoyed this book, it should be on everyone's TBR list.

Thanks to Netgalley for my advanced ebook copy.

HEAVEN’S A LIE
Wallace Stroby
Mulholland Books
ISBN 978-0-316-54060-5
Hardcover
Thriller

Wallace Stroby is a marvel. He has in a handful of novels established himself as a writer’s writer who can take bleak and world-weary characters who function in the shadows and on the periphery and make the reader care about them and their dark journeys through the criminal underground. HEAVEN’S A LIE, Stroby’s newest work, is set almost entirely in the environs of central New Jersey and puts a new twist on a familiar theme while exposing the reader to some of his best writing to date.

The plot of HEAVEN’S A LIE is very straightforward, and blessedly so. Joette Harper is the protagonist of the piece and has multiple problems which are of the sort which are fairly commonplace but no less grinding upon the soul. She is working in a dead-end job as the day clerk of a roadside motel which is on its last legs, her last employment stop after she was laid off from her job as a teller at a local bank. Though a young woman, she is widowed as the result of her husband’s death from cancer. Her mother is in assisting living due to dementia. Joette herself is living in a trailer park. Everything changes when Joette witnesses a one-car accident that occurs in front of the motel. She rushes to the automobile to assist the driver and finds that he has is near death, suffering from a gunshot wound. He gestures toward his car, where Joette finds an extremely significant amount of cash in a duffel bag. The driver dies, Joette calls the police, and hides the money. There is enough in the bag to solve all of Joette’s problems and literally change her life. The driver is dead. It doesn’t take much thought for Joette to decide to keep the money permanently. She begins to take the usual steps that one with a decent amount of intelligence might take to hide the money in plain sight and otherwise. There is a problem, of course, that being that the money almost certainly did not belong to the driver. The owner, who is not rightful but most certainly in his mind the owner, wants it back. He has no idea that Joette even exists, at least at first, but with a little information here and there, a dab of suspicion, some animal instinct, and a bit of criminal logic he figures come to the correct conclusion. The problem is that Joette kind of, sort of, regards the money as hers now, partly due to circumstance and partly due to need. The guy that she has after her is extremely dangerous, someone who will kill without hesitation if he needs to. Joette isn’t a killer, but she isn’t stupid, either. She’s not giving the money back without a fight and should not be underestimated. As HEAVEN’S A LIE demonstrates, there is nothing more dangerous than someone on either side of an equation who has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

The plot of HEAVEN’S A LIE is an interesting one, but Stroby’s primary strength has always been found in his characters, who march through his books and mark themselves in the reader’s memory with their passing. We all know these people --- or at least know of them --- as we encounter them in convenience stores, parking lots, and in other random instances where an inner voice tells us that it is best to move on, and quickly, even if they appear to be otherwise innocuous. Those folks, combined with Stroby’s masterful prose peppered with streetwise turns of phrase, make HEAVEN’S A LIE a must-read novel. Strongly recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2021, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

Such mixed feelings about this one. Loved the character but find her actions a push pull of indecision on how to handle the money a bit frustrating. Maybe that's the point, but ... not for me.

New Jersey novelist and journalist, Wallace Stroby, is perhaps most well-known for his Crissa Stone series which is presently eight books long. In HEAVEN'S A LIE, Stroby introduces readers to a new female protagonist.

Joette Harper is a down to earth woman making ends meet at the Jersey Shore area working in a crappy motel. She keeps her social circle small: a dying mother in hospice; a cop who is sweet on her; a friendly tennant of the motel and her daughter; and a best friend from an old job where she was downsized.

Stroby keeps his prose lean with the nostalgic meter of gumshoe noir. The first sentence immediately throws Joette and the readers: she's bored at work, watching a car out on the highway take a curve way too fast. She predicts the crash, but not the cause.

The conundrum for Joette is one, I think, most of us that are not financially well off think about. What if…

Money fell from the sky.
I win the lottery -- or --
A car crashes and there's a big bag of dirty drug money which no one can claim just sitting there for the taking.

There were no witnesses, but small time drug dealer Travis Clay figures out what happened to the bag of money which should be in his possession. Stroby alternates his present tense storytelling between Joette and Travis.

The COVID crisis is hinted at in only one line about people worrying if their colds are "the virus" again. It's a small detail that creates a link to the real world even if we'll never have to decide whether or not we would take a bag of money from an accident scene. Similarly, Stroby also wove in real Jersey situations about Superstorm Sandy and how property owners like the motel's owner getting relief funds but didn't use them to repair anything. Readers will get a thorough sense of the economy and how the people are suffering in Stroby's Jersey Shore.

Who among us doesn't know what it's like to have all your options sitting on hold because of the economy? Joette wants to take action in her familial life -- getting her mother's bills at the nursing home paid on top of the bills from her deceased husband's care already piled up and weighing on her.

Halfway through, Joette has to think twice about her plans and the money she swiped from the accident scene. Her character evolves from a broke motel clerk worried about bills and her grief to this new Joette she couldn't have expected: a thief and nearly a murderer.

As for the story arc of Travis Clay, he also goes through changes. He has one plan with his partner Cosmo, but he doesn't stick to it. Travis only cares about himself and his own survival. There's a perfect moment of a crime trope where the bad guys are talking about this deal being the last one and then they'll retire -- go straight or take some other path. You know what Travis is thinking. You know he's the kind of character with no loyalty. Two-thirds of the way through the book, Travis is firm in who he really is and that there won't be a "retirement" for him and Cosmo.

The stakes are raised in a series of moves that take readers to the final act. The characters go through hoops, driving around to get all the money from Joette's hiding places, all the while with a gun set on them. The reversal of fortune for Joette comes at a thrilling, intense, stressful climax.

Minor Flaws:

There were a couple of times when I questioned why characters did things that were clearly not going to pan out. Joette finally ends up with a weapon and she tosses it at a questionable time. It's obvious she should have held on to it and there's even a spot where she could have lost it more logically.

Out of the characters, Joette's old friend Helen from her past job at a bank, is the only one without a lot of depth. She's there to ground Joette in talking heads scenes, but I didn't feel a connection to her. There was more emotion felt with the nursing home staff.

Rating: 5 stars