“Let Me Lie”
Written by Clare
Mackintosh
As a person who frequents charity shops,
thrift stores, library sales, and many independent book stores, I’ve come
across Clare Mackintosh’s name many times. I’ve looked at her books on shelves,
considered many times. When I was offered the chance to read her newest book as
an advanced reader’s copy, I was very thrilled.
“Let Me Lie” is a very complex plot,
but it begins when a new mother, Anna Johnson, receives mail that seems to insinuate
her late parents were murdered, rather than dead by committing suicide. Anna
becomes terrified and entangled in this plot, working with Murray, a little old
soon-to-be retired police officer.
See, the great thing about this book
is the amount of plot twists and turns. However, this also makes for a really hard
line to tread while writing a review. Clare Mackintosh includes about four to
five main plot twists. Some of them are surprising, some of them are easy to figure
out as the book progresses. I always think that a good mystery lets you find
out who can be behind it all, before the main character realizes. This is
situational irony, but Mackintosh does a bit more foreshadowing than I would
like.
I liked the characters. The narrative
style is very interesting, as it follows four different perspectives, Anna, Murray,
and I can’t really tell you who the other perspectives follow. Mainly because
they change when you realize more information and it would spoil a bit of the
plot. I would recommend if you do not want to be spoiled in reading my review,
you should probably not read any further.
Spoilers now. Anna Johnson is an
interesting and likeable character. All too often, the narrator or main
character of a psychological thriller can be unlikeable. Think, Amy Dunne of
Gone Girl, Rachel of Girl on The Train, (the widow’s name from The Widow. I can’t
remember, it’s been at least 8 months since I’ve read it). We also wonder for a
bit of time if Mark, Anna’s husband, could possibly be in on it. I have to say
there are some great red herrings in this book. Is that person involved, who
could actually be behind this? I was very happy that the main person I was
concerned about was not actually involved in this suspenseful plot.
Can I also just say how often I’ve
read psychological thrillers where the main characters are Mark, Anna, Claire,
Tom? If you’re writing an English psychological thriller, pick something else. I
haven’t heard of a recent psychological thriller with a main character named
Adam, or Jacob, or Thelonious. I might be a bit cynical, but if I read too many
of these books in this genre, I won’t be able to decipher characters, sooner or
later.
I have quite a few points to make that
are full of spoilers, so like I said, pleeeease don’t read on if you’re wary of
spoilers. I always tab my pages with Sticky Notes or bookmarks, so I will be
looking now to see the points that I wanted to make sure were said in my
review.
The plot progresses as expected for a
larger psychological thriller. I think that the extra bits about Anna’s life or
Murray’s home life are interesting, but sometimes, they feel a bit extraneous. Murray’s
wife suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. I know not much of this
disorder, but his wife’s storyline is a bit clichéd for my liking. Murray’s plot
line makes sense and is necessary to the plot, but I don’t think I would have
enjoyed it less if his perspective was not included.
The narrative is separated into three
parts, similar to the three act play structure. At the end of part one, we receive
a huge shock, whoa, how on Earth did that play out? (It’s really not that
shocking, we knew it was happening, but Anna did not, of course). Because we
receive perspectives of the villains, we know exactly how each plan is going to
be executed. It’s as if we knew the janitor was scaring people away from the school
in a werewolf costume the whole time, and now we’re waiting to see how Scooby
Doo is going to find that out. I think if we only had Anna’s perspective throughout
this story, it would have been more effective, shocking, and compelling. I would
definitely have enjoyed it more, because I am not the type of person to enjoy
knowing the villains’ intentions the whole time. I like finding out everything
as a shock at the end.
As a few of the plot twists go, I was
okay with some of the reveals, but some of them just seemed extraneous and unnecessary.
We find out near the end exactly how everything has occurred, and who are the
people behind it all. However, did we have to sit through 150 pages incorrectly
wondering how one of the villains is going to come destroy Anna? The bogeyman isn’t
so scary when you find out why he’s creeping around. I don’t enjoy reading psychological
thrillers where I’m believing something for a large portion of time, and BAM
the spoiler is that it’s something else entirely. It feels like a cheap cop out
of a plot twist. In addition, we have two little end bits to wrap up Mark’s
story and Murray’s story. Murray’s story wrap-up is very expected, but I don’t
think it was necessary for this book. A separate book on Borderline Personality
Disorder maybe, but it felt like the season finale of “Degrassi” or another
teen soap. Mark’s story ending makes a lot of sense for the book, I just wish
we cared a little more about him the entire way. I remember reading a psychological
thriller over the Christmas break, and I just found myself loving the main love
interest, so much that I didn’t really care what happened to the main
character. Will her life come to a crazy crashing halt? Nah, just the husband
matters. Mark would have been a much more interesting character if Anna
involved him in the story.
Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed the last
75 pages or so. Once the climax began, it just kept going through a high-speed
car chase, a crazy showdown in an apartment building. The first 2/3rds
of the book weren’t hard to put down, but the last act was. And the best part
of the book, the family pet was not murdered. (Why does this always happen in
psychological thrillers? Not cool!)
Last page, I mean come on already, we’re
finished up. No cliffhanger wanted or needed, thank you though.
* I received an
advanced reader’s copy for reviewing purposes. *
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