Emily Klein doesn’t know she has killed her husband until the day of his funeral.At first, signs point to a tragic accident. Yet, as Emily pieces together the events before his death – events which led to her own memory loss – she begins to suspect that her husband’s death may have been the result of more than a terrible twist of fate… beginning. Because while Emily’s physical scars will heal, the trauma of the accident has awakened old ghosts. She hears strange sounds, catches things that can’t possibly be there in the corner of her eye. Before long, everywhere she looks, she seems to see her husband.
And suddenly, Emily finds herself asking the most dangerous question of all.
Can she really trust herself?
Reviewers love Those Who Lie:
‘[A] scorchingly good thriller’ – Lisa Hall, bestselling author of mega-hit Between You and Me
‘A tantalising and taut thriller with more twists and turns than a corkscrew. Red herrings swim all the way through it. An excellent page turner’ – Sally (Goodreads)
‘This is a must read for anyone who lives to delve into psychological thrillers!’ – Linda Strong, Netgalley
‘With brilliant main characters and a wonderful plot, this book is a real page turner. I would highly recommend this book.’ – Stephanie Collins, Netgalley
‘I absolutely adored this book’ – Lu Dex, Netgalley
‘Great book.. keeps you guessing!! If you love twists and turns then this book if for you!’ – Diane Merrit, Netgalley
‘With twists and turns that will wrong-foot you all the way, a dash of dark humour and a strong emotional punch, this is an excellent debut that more than earns its place within the genre.’ – S.J.I. Holliday, author of Black Wood
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Those Who Lie is a shocking thrill ride from beginning to end. Diane Jeffrey takes the reader through a roller coaster of emotions from “that is so sad” to “what in the world is going on here?”
Emily Klein wakes up in the hospital to police investigators. She knows there has been a horrible accident, but she does not remember anything about the crash. She does remember that she was driving, and her husband was in the car. Emily is confused because none of her family is there to be with her. Her husband is not there. She does not see her mother or sister or brother. She soon learns they are all at her husband’s funeral. Emily is devastated when she learns that she killed her husband in the crash.
Or did she? Messages start arriving from her husband. Everywhere she goes, she sees him, but he will not talk to her. Emily cannot understand why her husband keeps running or why he will not come home.
While her past continues to haunt her, Emily must face her demons and unravel the web of betrayal to move forward.
Diane Jeffrey delivers a psychological thriller with one plot twist after another. Jeffrey even ends the book with one final twist that leaves the reader reeling. Some issues remain unresolved even in the end, which makes me hope that there will be a sequel to Those Who Lie.
Those Who Lie will be released December 6, 2021, and I highly recommend it. This would be a great stocking stuffer for someone who enjoys mysteries and/or psychological thrillers. Be prepared to stay up way too late reading and have your mind blown.
2014
Emily wakes up in a hospital to find two police officers by her bedside who begin to question her. They tell her that the car she was driving crashed and her husband, Greg, was killed.
1995
When she was a child, Emily’s father continuously sexually abused her. Then, one night when he came to her, she shot and killed him. Afterward, she spent some time in a Children’s Mental Hospital.
2014
Emily is home from the hospital and recovering from her injuries. She is trying to accept Greg’s death. When she starts receiving messages on Facebook she’s convinced are from Greg, she wonders if he really could be alive.
This is a twisted story of grief and how it can mess with your emotions. It switches back and forth in time to show readers how Emily’s childhood left her without a lot of stability. However, I found it frustrating at times to understand Emily’s inability to cope. Grief is a horrible thing but the whole story just did not have that thriller effect that I hoped to see.
Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I like giving new authors a try, and the blurb calling this first novel by Diane Jeffrey a “tantalising (sic) and taut thriller with more twists and turns than a corkscrew” was intriguing, so I requested an advance reader copy of this novel. Did it live up to the blurb? Not really. While it wasn’t dreadful, I didn’t find it to be a taut thriller for a number of reasons, which I’ll get to, and for those reasons, I cannot give this novel more than a 2-star rating.
From the first sentence, in August 2014, “Emily Klein doesn’t know she has killed him until the day of his funereal. Her loved ones, including of course, her husband, are all at the church rather than her bedside.” I’ll admit to being intrigued, and we soon learn that Emily is in the hospital, the police are at her bedside, and after being given some information from the two law enforcement officers waiting at her bedside for her to regain consciousness, she has only a vague memory of the car crash, and no idea that she was the driver, or that her husband is dead.
Instead of moving forward in time, we then jump back to December, 1995, only to learn that 14-year-old Emily has been repeatedly sexually abused by her father, and that her mother is an alcoholic. Emily is so afraid of his abuse, that this time she has a knife stashed under her pillow, but in short order, while again being sexually abused, her father is shot dead, and Emily is blamed and found guilty of his murder–and ends up being sentenced to time in a youthful offender/mental health facility, although she has no memory of killing her father.
We then jump forward to 2014, and that’s just the beginning of the chapter by chapter jumps between Emily’s past and her present–so many jumps in time and location that I started to keep chapter-by-chapter notes on what year we were in and at which location, something I found incredibly annoying. I suppose that all the time jumps, and Emily’s memories were an attempt to add tension and intrigue to this story, but I would have been far happier and far less confused reading this novel had it been written in a linear time frame.
The next major event is the death of Emily’s mother in a drunken fall down the stairs, and once again, Emily, who was nowhere near the scene is again interrogated. I kept asking myself why she never did what I would have done if I were to be suspected of two, and possibly 3 murders, and that is to ask for an attorney. Meanwhile, Emily is getting phone calls and Facebook posts purportedly from her supposedly dead husband. Does she mention this to law enforcement? Of course not, because that would make too much sense. (Loud sigh!).
There are a number of secondary characters, Will, a childhood friend, Matt, her younger brother, Richard, a strange man she’s been dating, her older sister, Amanda, and her best friend, Pippa. None of these friends suggests hiring an attorney either, and, as the novel progresses, there are instances where Emily thinks she sees her dead husband, her belief that she’s being followed, missing cell phones, odd text messages, break-ins at her home, the destruction of the paintings she was planning to exhibit, and, oh yes, the suggestion that Emily has a dissociative personality disorder, and that these crimes are being committed by her alter-ego, Em, also the name of Emily’s imaginary childhood friend.
With its confusing timeline, long periods during which Emily and her friends and family keep coming up with possible suspects or reasons for what Emily is experiencing, the fact that there was little to no character development for any of those secondary characters, this novel, while not badly written, just dragged on and on, as slow as molasses in January.
Yes, there is a surprise ending, and, since I’m not generally a fan of psychological thrillers, I didn’t guess the identity of the person who was behind all of the aforementioned plot twists, break-ins, sightings and vandalism, which was the only saving grace I could find in this novel. If this is a genre you enjoy, you may like this novel far more than I did, but I cannot recommend it.
As stated at the outset, I read an an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions stated are my own.
Great mystery. I didn’t guess the villian but my co-worker did. Ending: surprise twist or set up for a sequel ??