Liars

Speak your truth. Or at least the truth you want others to believe. Everyone is guilty of something! Good book! Wow there was a lot going on in this one! There was suspense, intrigue, action, murder, mystery, plenty of secrets, a fantastic who done it and some crazy twists and turns! The storylines was very interesting and kept me glued to my kindle! I highly recommend reading this book! Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

With his second crime novel, Liars, James O’Loghlin has produced a deceptively complex murder mystery. With elements that can only be described as a whodunnit that combines a classic cozy mystery with the structure of a police procedural, this is a small town crime novel that is filled with intrigue.

In the small NSW Central Coast town of Bullford Point, life seems pretty quiet with the usual small town issues marking as exciting as things get. There’s a certain bucolic quaintness about the beachside town, but that feeling is rudely shattered when Karen Kemp’s body is found in the nearby bushland.

And then recently rehabbed drug addict Joe Griffiths is discovered in his bed, dead from an overdose. The fact that Joe, who was secretly meeting with Karen behind her boyfriend’s back, was the prime suspect for Karen’s murder is a notable feature in what appears to be a remorse filled suicide.

The local police constable, Seb Baxter, is a little overwhelmed by the scope of the crimes that have been committed on his patch. The homicide detectives from Sydney quickly take over the scenes, draw their conclusions and head home again. Seb was once good friends with Joe, while saddened and disappointed with what’s happened, is prepared to accept his colleague’s findings.

It’s not until Barb Young, a middle-aged local woman who had employed Joe in her handyman business, takes it on herself to investigate the deaths. The classic “things just don’t add up” sets her on her path and she teams up with Seb to get to the bottom of the mysteries. She turns out to be the scene stealing star of the piece, kind of reminiscent of The Thursday Murder Club’s Joyce (if you’ve read the books) with her penchant for baking and pressing her delicious cakes on otherwise hard nosed criminals.

Now, Seb and Joe went to school together, along with Sal, Viv, Gary, Leanne and Dev. Together they formed a band, led by Sal, and ended up heading to Sydney during their university days with the hope that they might be able to make it big. Just before their big break, Sal disappeared without explanation and moved to the Blue Mountains and was then strangled to death in her home. The death had been counted as the work of a local serial killer, the third in the string of murders at the time.

This little bit of background serves to essentially give us a group of five potential suspects to sift through as we try to work out who the killer is.

A good portion of the story early on is told via emails, letters, text transcripts and podcast transcripts between members of the Bullford Point and surrounding area community. This carried on for an overly long portion of the book, at least the first 12% and was, quite frankly, an onerous read.

This is a double murder mystery solved by a combination of an amateur sleuth and a junior small town police constable. Events that took place more than seven years ago are crucial to solving the case and we’re given a healthy list of potential suspects

Once past the “correspondence” section of the book, things flow far more quickly and in a linear fashion with a solid mystery slowly unfolding to tantalize. The events from the past are cleverly brought to light in a believable way and while there are a few conveniently accurate conclusions drawn based on even more conveniently provided pieces of evidence, things move to quite a thrilling ending.

I found Liars to be an entertaining small town murder mystery that did a good job of balancing the lighter, more cozy moments with the darker, far more dangerous criminal elements.

My thanks to Echo Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC to read, enjoy and review this book.