Chilling family secrets, obsession and decades-old lies. How well do we really know the ones we love? A gripping psychological thriller from the #1 bestselling author of Look Behind You.Twenty-five years ago Katie ran away from home and never came back. But now she’s suddenly reappeared in her best friend Olivia’s life—in the form of a chilling confession. Olivia’s father-in-law, wracked with … wracked with guilt, says he murdered her all those years ago. Tom suffers from Alzheimer’s and his story is riddled with error and confusion. Except for one terrifying certainty: he knows where the body is buried.
As Olivia and the police piece together the evidence, they are left with one critical question. They have a crime, they have a confession, and now they have a body—but can any of it be trusted?
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In Where The Memories Lie, Sibel Hodge asks us to examine the question How Far Would You Go To Protect The People You Love? The patriarch of the Tate family, Tom, suffers from Alzheimer’s and, as his mind grows more cloudy, he makes a shocking confession. He killed a young girl and then concealed her body. As the family tries to reckon with this revelation, more secrets spill out and the members of the Tate family spiral into a morass of anxiety and shock.
Did Tom kill someone? That should be the burning question of the book. But the twists and turns encountered by the reader turn the story into one of morality more than suspense. It is a good story, and the writing is solid. You won’t anticipate the ending. But the point of the book is not unmasking a killer, or the heartbreak of Alzheimer’s and what it does to our loved ones. It’s how morality is up to the individual and how a wrong can be justified as right if there is a good reason.
The main character, Olivia, considers herself a moral person. She even supports capital punishment for those guilty of heinous crimes. She battles with how to handle Tom’s confession, and even says it is wrong to keep what she knows a secret even if it implicates her own husband. That is, until she finds out the whole truth. In the interest of protecting her loved ones, she chooses to go against her moral code and justifies it by saying she is protecting an innocent person.
Except it’s not okay to do something wrong for a good reason. Without law, without moral absolutes, we have chaos. The system may be flawed but it is there to protect us. It exists so we don’t have to make these calls. Olivia openly admits to being an atheist, but belief in a supreme Deity is not necessary to be a law abiding and conscientious citizen.
I do not know if Ms. Hodge intended to promulgate a particular ideology, or if she simply wanted the reader to confront their own sense of right and wrong. While the book is carefully plotted and the drama compelling, it may make you uncomfortable. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
We all want to be thought of as well adjusted, our families normal. Just how well we know each other is addressed in this book, good read
Twenty-five years ago Katie ran away from home and never came back. But now she’s suddenly reappeared in her best friend Olivia’s life—in the form of a chilling confession. Olivia’s father-in-law, wracked with guilt, says he murdered her all those years ago. Tom suffers from Alzheimer’s and his story is riddled with error and confusion.
All of this convinces Olivia, even with her husband’s family’s request not to pursue it, to investigate what really happened to her friend all those years ago. The ending was unpredictable!
Very nicely done with interesting characters. Author held the attention of this reader from start to finish. Well done.
I did not enjoy this book I found the characters one-dimensional and unbelievable.
Wonderful book, proving once again that this author can tackle any genre. What if a man with dementia thinks he once committed a murder? Great read!