Nick and Annie are one of my favorite fiction couples, right up there with Eve and Roarke. I am so glad that Tami Hoag is continuing this series, I hope she decides to never end it! This story keeps you riveted from page one and doesn't give up its secrets easily. Just when I thought I had it sorted the story takes a different path. Twisty as the waterways in the bayou where this plot is set, mysteries don't get much better than this one.

On a moonlit night in the dark swamp of the bayou a boat glides deep into the wilderness on a mission. Miles away a desperate mother surveils the squalid home of her son. In a wealthier part of town, a wife celebrates her birthday, alone, in a place she never wanted to be. In a different place two lovers celebrate being alive and together.

The next morning Nick Fourcade is summoned to the scene of a gruesome murder and thus begins an investigation that will challenge and frustrate him when the victim's identity is unknown and there are precious few clues to follow. That same morning Annie Broussard enters the sheriff's station for the first time in months feeling ready to tackle someone else's problems besides her own. She meets B'Lynn Fontenot whose adult son, Robbie, is missing, and no one will help her because he is a former drug addict and what does she expect? Annie decides B'Lynn needs answers as to what happened to her son, no matter how it ends.

Following the only real clue his victim gave him; Nick encounters the family of what turns out to be another missing person. Hometown hero Marc Mercier has been missing for several days and his mother is sure his Yankee wife has killed him. Nick needs to arrest her: Now. Even with no evidence and no body. Marc left a lucrative job up north to assist his family's business when his father got sick and then died. His wife never fit in. Deep animosity exists within this family.

Robbie Fontenot and Marc Mercier both disappeared shortly after the Halloween Monster Bash but that is not the only connection they have.

My thanks to the Publisher, and Author, for providing a complimentary digital Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel via NetGalley. This is my fair, honest and personal review. All opinions are mine alone and were not biased in any way.

So good to have Hoag back. Don't worry if you missed the first two in this series or if you, like me, have forgotten the fine details in the years since 2018 when The Boy was published because Hoag provides enough back story to make this a very enjoyable and twisty standalone read. Det. Annie Broussard finds herself looking for Robbie, a recovering addict who has gone missing, because she feels for his mother. At the name time, her husband and boss Lt. Nick Fourcade is trying to id a body found in a swamp, a body whose face was shot off. Is it Robby? Or, is it Marc, the golden son of a salvage operation who came back to help out but now has gone missing as well. This is a tour through families, drug users, dark corners, and Louisiana in general. It's complex, the characters are good and yes, there's a lot of lies. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. I really enjoyed this.

Apparently there were two previous books featuring the lead characters, Detective Annie Broussard and her husband Nick Fourcade, Sheriff's detective. He is officially Annie's boss, so they are both in law enforcement, but I think it might be helpful to have read the first two before this third installment as they make reference to some incidents that were life-altering without giving much in the way of details. This takes place in southern Louisiana. Nick and Annie are working on two different cases but they kind of overlap each other.

Frankly, I found it a bit slow going. I can't honestly say that I was riveted at any point, as it was advertised. Mostly a lot of ordinary investigating that goes along with crime fiction. The relationships between the characters were more interesting for me, and I found the main characters likable and relatable.

The final third held my attention more than the first two thirds. I have enjoyed this authors works in the past and consider Tami Hoag a favorite in crime drama.

Release date is 9/24/2024
#NetGalley
#PenguinGroupDuton

I appreciate when books that say they are a standalone are truly standalones. I felt like I missed a little bit of the backstory with the two MCs but other than that this was a classic whodunnit. Let me rephrase it was a classic whodunnit done WELL. I really enjoyed this one. Watching it unfold and trying to figure out what had gone down kept me pushing through this one. There were some heavier topics discussed- drug use, physical abuse, addiction to name a few just as an FYI. I was drawn in the by the characters and wanted to know how it was all going to shake out. I like B'Lynn the most. I felt a connection to her. She was just so hopeful that her son was going to be ok. She had been down the road of h*ll with her son and his addiction but somehow still held onto hope. Then we had Marc who was the golden boy that left to get away but found himself drawn to the place where he was kind of treated like a god. We had his henchmen and brother and their whole family dynamic. And then we had the police officers and everything they came with. Most notably that the two MCs are married with a son, and Annie just came back from an injury that had everyone shook up. This is the story of how hard it is for some people to move on from their past for better or for worse and the decisions that they make to either live in it or move on.

A body has been found by the bayou basically without a face. Now begins the work of putting all of the clues together to determine who it is. He had connections to a junk yard service where Nick Fourcade finds out that a member of that family happens to be missing. On the other side of town, Annie is at the police station when a woman comes in visibly shaken. She is claiming that her son has been missing for several days and no one can be bothered to help her. While they are both working their own cases, clues keep popping up that lead them further and further down the rabbit hole. Until it is revealed that the two missing men are connected. They went to high school together and while one was injured with his life forever affected, the other moved onto to be a super star and go on to college. They haven't seen each other in years. So what brought them together now? What changed that made things from the past come to light? What do crooked cops have to do with all of this? And through it all a domestic violence case gets thrown into the mix. Will Nick and Annie be able to crack the case before anyone else gets hurt?

I enjoyed watching these puzzle pieces get linked together. Tami did a wonderful job of that in my opinion. I enjoyed getting different POVs even of somewhat minor characters. Tami had a wonderful way of getting us inside their heads to clue us in on what they were thinking. I find myself intrigued enough to go back and read the other books in this series.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I’m not sure why, among the 1,875 books I have on goodreads, there isn’t a single one by Tami Hoag…especially after repeatedly seeing the huge number of positive reviews for the Broussard and Fourcade series. For sure, reviews don’t guarantee anything, but in any case I thought the combination of Louisiana bayou, Detective and sidekick, and intriguing mystery sounded promising and something even my husband (a huge fan of James Lee Burke) might enjoy.

Hoag is known for her strong characters, which is evident early on in Bad Liar, as we are introduced to characters: “...there she sat, alone in her kitchen, drinking warm chardonnay in the glow of the undercabinet lighting, in a backwater town in sour Louisiana. A place she didn’t belong. A fact she was reminded of daily by people she didn’t like and who didn’t like her. People who had pulled her husband back here on the leash of obligation and loyalty, dragging her along, an unwanted accessory.” Seriously, I was hooked early on!

Nick Fourcade and his wife Antoinette (“Annie” Broussard) are the main characters in this thriller. Nick is involved in a case involving a half naked male corpse, the first in a series of dead males, while Annie is trying to help a woman who came to the sheriff’s office begging for help finding her missing son Robbie Fontenot (a former football star, now a drug addict). Dismissed as probably just another dead junkie who probably overdosed, no one is making any effort to help her until Annie comes along. As Annie pondered the situation with this case of Robbie, “a much-loved child of comfort and opportunity” who “… had the world rolled out in front of him like a red carpet…He had lost it all. Thrown it away, some would say, though addiction wasn’t as simple as choice. Resentment of privilege more often than not erased the sympathy of casual observers to a train wreck life. That was just how people were–jealous and petty. But life was only black and white to those lucky enough to never have been faced with real adversity.” Nick and Annie both have experience dealing with various characters and situations, and Nick realizes “People found all kinds of excuses to do the most terrible things.”

There are multiple bodies along the way, and while it’s impossible to tell more without spoiling the story, I just loved it and came away with an appreciation of Tami Hoag and a desire to read more of her other books, particularly others in the Fourcade-Broussard series (Bad Liar is #3, following A Thin Dark Line and The Boy. With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group for providing a copy of Bad Liar in exchange for my honest review, this one gets 5 stars.

Two missing men, three seemingly unconnected crimes, a dead body, plenty of suspects and many, many lies keep sheriff’s detectives and husband and wife Nick Fourcade and Annie Broussard busy. Family dynamics, jealousy, tragedy, bad choices, domestic violence, regret, and more. The past can come back to haunt you.

The book was hard to get into at first, but then it took off. I did figure out the identity of the body well before it was revealed but the story was still good.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Bad Liar by Tami Hoag is a very highly recommended procedural and the third book in the series featuring Det. Antoinette “Annie” Broussard and Lt. Nick Fourcade of the Partout Parish, Louisiana, sheriff's office.

Sheriff’s detective lieutenant Nick Fourcade starts his day investigating a murder. Identification will take time as the victim's face and hands obliterated by a shotgun blast. His initial round of questions during the investigation looking for the identity of the victim leads him to Marc Mercier, a hometown hero who has been missing since he left home for a weekend hunting trip.

Nick's wife, sheriff’s detective Annie Broussard, begins her first day back after a leave of absence facing a distraught mother, B’Lynn Fontenot, whose adult son Robbie has been missing for eight days. Robbie is a recovering addict and the local police didn't take her concerns seriously, but Annie does. It quickly becomes apparent that they can't identified the murder victim as either missing man and both missing men have more going on in their lives than initially thought.

This is a well-written, complex plot that closely follows Nick and Annie as they investigate their challenging cases and follow the clues where they lead. Those who enjoy detailed procedurals and crime fiction will enjoy Bad Liar. The plot starts at a fast pace, slows down during the middle of the novel, and picks up again toward the end. There are several interesting discoveries and twists during the investigations that will hold your attention.

Nick and Annie are fully realized characters and portrayed with real depth. Even the secondary characters are given a great deal of character development. The dialogue is full of Cajun phrases, providing an authentic regional feel to the setting.

Bad Liar is the third novel in the series featuring Nick and Annie that starts with A Thin Dark Line (1997) and The Boy (2018). Thanks to Dutton for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Tami Hoag’s latest novel in the Broussard and Fourcade series, Bad Liar, is a suspenseful crime thriller and police procedural that pulls on the heart strings at times. Multiple cases are keeping the sheriff’s detectives in Partout Parish, Louisiana busy. A murder victim that will be hard to identify has been dumped on a country road. Lieutenant Nick Fourcade’s only lead becomes the missing hometown hero who came home to help the family business after the death of his father. Meanwhile Nick’s wife and detective Annie Broussard, takes on the case of a missing son who has been in and out of jail and rehab facilities for the last ten years.

Nick is intense, somewhat overprotective at times, and has mentored others in the department. Annie feels she needs to be useful to mankind, is good at reading people, loves her job, but occasionally experiences situational anxiety. She also tends to speak her mind and does what she thinks is right.

The author has written a novel that quickly pulls readers into the story once they get past the first chapter which seemed disjointed as it moved rapidly from scene to scene. The gripping narrative gave excellent insight into the challenges the police and secondary characters faced. Hoag balances the unflinching reality of small-town challenges, addiction, domestic abuse, and murder with family, obligations, loyalty, and the desire to help others. The story is twisty, atmospheric, and is sprinkled with local dialect. It’s heartbreaking at times, and riveting throughout. Hoag brings to life compelling characters who are emotionally rich, and she does the same for the steamy Louisiana bayous. The world-building is well-done and added to the unsettling atmosphere. The pacing picks up substantially during the last third of the novel.

Hoag does an excellent job of showing how family and friendship dramas and loyalty can have far-reaching effects on others. She also does a good job of making readers consider the terms retribution and justice. A dialect glossary has been provided at the end of the novel.

Overall, this was an intense, engaging, and emotional thriller filled with surprises around each corner. If you enjoy police procedurals and crime thrillers, then I recommend that you check out this one. While this can be read as a standalone novel, reading the earlier books will provide more background and show how the characters have grown over time. I am looking forward to finding out this author writes next.

PENGUIN GROUP Dutton - Dutton and Tami Hoag provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. The publication date is currently set for September 24, 2024. This review was originally posted at Mystery and Suspense Magazine.

I totally enjoyed this book as Tami Hoag is an all time favorite author. There were so many twists after twists and absolutely shocked at the ending!!! Definitely a must add to your TBR!!

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review!!!

4 ⭐ 0 🌶

I really enjoyed this book. While I'm not sure police procedurals are a genre I'll visit often... I just prefer more action a faster pace story, this one was absolutely fascinating and once we got towards the end it really picked up and I had a blast reading it.

This definitely didn't end up how I thought it was going to. We got twist after twist as it came to the conclusion and I was blown away by a few happenings. It was a much sadder ended than I expected and hoped for, but it also ended with a note of hope and love and I felt a sense of peace for these characters despite what they went through over the course of this book.

I'll be picking up more Tami in the future and probably going back to read the beginning of Nick and Annie's story too.

The Bad Liar by Tami Hoag is another masterpiece in storytelling. Even with this being the third book in the series, this can be a stand alone book. I enjoyed the story so much I went back and read the first two books in series. If you are a lover of mystery, this is a must read.

Tami Hoag’s Bad Liar reminds us that evil often wears a friendly face. In a novel that is both intense and mesmerizing, you’ll find yourself eager to reach the end and figure out which of the many suspects is our dangerous liar.

The day starts with a dead body and ends with two missing persons, either of whom could be the corpse Lieutenant Nick Fourcade is called to investigate. Left in an isolated area abutting a gator-filled swamp, the body is unidentifiable after having the face and hands blasted off by a shotgun. Nick’s only lead as to the identity of victim is a business card in a pocket reading Mercier & Sons Salvage, $2,875.00 dollars.

When he visits the facility to see if they can tell him anything about the transaction listed, Nick learns that Marc Mercier left his home for a weekend hunting trip and hasn’t been seen since. His brother Luc, his erstwhile hunting partner, had arranged to meet him at the Corners, a local gas station/restaurant, at five am the previous day, but Marc wasn’t there when Luc arrived and hasn’t called, spoken to, or been seen by anyone since.

Detective Annie Broussard, Nick’s wife, is both anxious and excited to begin her first day back on the job after her medical leave. A brutal, unexpected attack during her last investigation has left her with PTSD and a host of other issues, but she has finally been deemed fit for duty. Heading to human resources to fill out some necessary paperwork, she encounters a woman desperate to find her missing son. B’Lynn Fontenot has been to the small local police department, who blew her off, claiming her recovering, formerly drug-addicted adult child Robbie has probably just gone on a bender. B’Lynn is confident that hasn’t happened and is so anxious to get to the bottom of his disappearance she plans to prevail on her friendship with the Sheriff to get his office to take the case. Fortunately for her, the area where her son lived is within the Sheriff’s jurisdiction. B’Lynn is also lucky that Annie is a mother as well. B’Lynn’s worry and anguish touch Annie’s heart, and she agrees to take the case.

Annie and Nick couldn’t be seeking two more different fugitives. Marc, a high school football hero, college graduate, and popular figure in town, seems almost universally loved. Robbie, who barely graduated high school, is, at best, pitied and often spoken of with scorn. Yet our two detectives find their investigations intersecting as they try to unravel just where these men disappeared to – and why,

The author has a terrific knack for showcasing the dark side of human nature and how even the most seemingly normal of us is capable of doing the most horrifying things when desperate. Ms. Hoag also does a fantastic job of demonstrating that sometimes families and friends are our salvation, and other times, they are the cause of our undoing. It was fascinating to see what is uncovered as each man’s darkest secrets are slowly brought to light by the cops.

While this is the third book in the Broussard and Fourcade series, it doesn’t read like a series book. The emphasis is not on Annie and Nick or their relationship. Their son Justin barely makes an appearance and is hardly mentioned and the narrative focuses firmly on the mystery, which works fabulously well here. The lives of Marc and Robbie are both complex and convoluted, and how they converge, and the fallout from that makes the story riveting. Each man and the people around them are drawn with a slowly revealed clarity that leaves us moved by their story.

I can’t say enough good things about the writing. Hoag gets the balance between characters, plot, and location perfectly right. We get a real sense of how the community and the area where these men live play a part in the outcome of their lives - and how the people we interact with and trust are ultimately the ones who can harm us the most. From the start, the narrative has a dark, almost gritty feel that helps immerse us in their world.

We also get a strong feel for who Annie and Nick are as people, and how that affects the way they handle their cases. Annie is all heart, wanting to see the best in people but experienced enough to know that is rarely what she will encounter. Nick is her mirror image. Wise enough to know that nice people rarely get caught up in the kind of nasty problems that result in his being called in, he nevertheless has empathy for the perpetrators and the dark paths that lead their lives to entwine with his. Both of them have the strength of character needed to muck through the dark places most people fear to go, the cynicism necessary to ferret out the truth, and the compassion necessary to do so in a manner that cushions the fallout for the victims. If you were ever to find yourself at the heart of an investigation, you would want them in your corner.

I’ve mentioned the book has a dark and gritty tone, and I want to reiterate that this story deals with some troubling issues. Drug abuse and addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, theft - all of them are covered. The author doesn’t go into needless detail or glorify the situation in any way, but she does shine a light on what it is like to live in a world where those things make up your reality. If any of these is triggering for you, this is probably not a book you’ll want to read..

Bad Liar is more of a mystery than a thriller, and I absolutely loved that. Rather than spending a lot of time in the twisted mind of a psycho, I got to see the good guys (kinda) win one for once. If you enjoy detective stories at all, I strongly recommend this one.

Add two detectives (who happen to be married), to two missing men, two mothers, and corpse that is impossible to identify, and the result is a story with many possibilities. The detectives Annie and Nick each pursue their own aspect of the mysteries, and of course we know they must be connected. The Cajun flavor of setting and dialog add to the richness of the characters, and we can hope that we'll be reading more about these detectives.

This novel was well written and very interesting. I am new to the series of Nick and Annie, investigating and trying to find justice in their small southern town. Although there were references to the two previous books, I didn’t feel lost or that I was missing something by starting with book three.
I enjoyed it and will be reading more Tami Hoag in the future. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

Deep in the Southern Louisiana Bayou, a half naked male corpse is found. “This is about a woman” remarked a local police officer. Detective Nick Bordeaux is perplexed by the man’s state of undress and a business card in the pocket. On the other side of town, Nick’s wife Antoinette is searching for a missing young man after his mother comes pleading into the sheriffs office begging for anyone to listen to her. Her son Robbie, once a high school football star tuned drug addict had been missing for a week but no-one would listen because he’s just another drug junkie probably overdose and just a cold body waiting to be found. As the investigation continues more men are missing and no answers can be found.

Bad Liar has the twists and turns to keep you wanting more and accented with just the right amount of French Cajun that makes this region so unique. Just when you think you know the answer to the mystery another twist is thrown in with an ending no one sees coming. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Bad Liar and highly recommend! I look forward to reading more books by Tami Haag

Thanks NetGalley and Penguin Group for an advanced copy of Bad Liar for my honest review.

4 ⭐️ When I received this ARC I didn’t realize it was the third in a series with husband and wife detectives Nick and Annie Fourcade. Though it is a stand alone, there are some background stories from the first two books I feel will complement this book.

This story started slow. There is a dead man and two missing former high school friends, Nick and Marc. Who is dead? And why? Lots of twists and turns, a real mystery thriller. I got hooked about halfway in and couldn’t put it down. There are many interesting family members and friends that contribute to the feel of the story arc.

I liked the way the plot was woven with several suspects and lots of surprises. Nick and Annie are a great couple and very caring, compassionate and smart. In the end they got their man/men.

***domestic violence, drug addiction, murder

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton Publishing for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Looking for a book with dedicated detectives, the Louisiana swamp, and 2 missing men connected by their small town past? Bad Liar by Tami Hoag has all of the above (and more)!
As your resident police procedural expert, this was excellent. Nick Fourcade and Annie Broussard are fantastic leads, with a long history together and a determination to get justice for their cases. I enjoyed following both of them as they worked their cases, visiting the many areas of their precinct.
The cases Fourcade and Broussard were working to solve were fascinating, and so realistic. As the third book in their series, I was worried it would be about hunting some fantastically intelligent serial killer. Instead, Hoag wove together stories of heartbreakingly real issues: opioid addiction, domestic violence, and assault. Hoag also wrote incredible side characters that truly impacted me emotionally.
Thanks to Netgalley and Dutton Books for the free advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review!

This book was a slow burn for me. I'm not sure I'd classify it as a thriller because there weren't a lot of twists until the last 1/3 of the book. It was a good read though, with good story development. I like the cop couple, Nick and Annie, and might have to check out the books that came before this one. The Louisiana dialect made it a bit harder to read at times, but I think it would've been easier in physical book form than Kindle, because I could have turned to the definition pages more easily. Overall, it was an entertaining book though!

This book had a slow start for me; I didn't really get pulled in until halfway through. While reading, I felt like a little detective trying to solve three different mystery crime situations. I thought I had guessed it, but nope—I was wrong. When I got to the last 30% of the book, I couldn't put it down; I needed to know what would happen next. This story takes you on a journey involving two missing people and a dead body. There are so many hands in this pot that you won't know who to believe as the story unfolds. Talk about a mystery and fast-paced thriller once things pick up!

I also didn't know this was the third book in a series. After reading this, I will definitely be checking out more books by this author.

Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton, for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The swamps and surrounding environs of Louisiana set the back drop for a layered mystery. This is my first Tami Hoag book in several years and to be honest, I prefer her earlier books like the Deer Lake and Oak Knoll series. Still this is a good book. Tami Hoag knows how to craft a mystery you want to read. From the beginning the reader is flung around to many scenes in Louisiana from love to murder to despair. And just when you started to wonder what was next you were off to another scene.
Eventually the mystery started to present themselves from the first murder to the missing person (alligator bait.) All these tangled webs brings together a husband and wife law enforcement team. A capable team if books 1 and 2 in this series prove to be as deep as this one. A husband and wife beholden to different jurisdictions but brought together for justice. I've not read the other two books so it will be interesting to go back and see how the relationship built to this point.
The mystery begins with identifying the body who has been made less having his identifying pieces destroyed. Doing so leads us to the characters briefly touched on in the beginning of the story and ties together the disparate threads of the story to get justice for the interesting cast of characters. When I say interesting characters, they do start from the beginning of the book with the old neighbor who found the body and his Cajun drawl. I admit at this point to being a little lost on some of the words. Never fear, Tami does not leave readers reaching to google to understand the words, instead she added a glossary at the end of the book. Doing so allowed her to keep the Cajun flavor to keep the stage set for small town Louisiana on the edge of the swampland. In fact, I had to chuckle early on at Fourcade's partner when he joked that the killer was lazy or the swamp would have washed away the body. I'm glad it dd not because we needed that murder to get the story going and to setup the mystery to lead us threw the lives mentioned in the early going.
Again, I might have preferred the early books but this is still worth reading. Just be sure to settle in as it is a lengthy book which is common to many of Tami's books. I would give it about a 3.5 to 3.75 which translates for review purposes to a 4.
Thanks to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for the opportunity to read this ARC.