In Lie With Me Sabine Durrant spins a web of lies masking a series of whodunnits. Crime fiction becomes psychological suspense with emphasis on the difficulties remembering what exactly happened in the past and whether the protagonist reveals everything on first hand. Paul Morris meets his former University friend Andrew. Through him, he meets Alice, a widowed human rights lawyer and mother of three teens on a Greek island. The quiet life in this Greek environment gets a shake-up, once Paul returns, obsessed with all female characters around, especially their bathing clothes and physical appearance.
Is Paul Morris a sexist, yet only undressing women with his eyes? What are certain pictures doing on his mobile phone? What was he doing in a night club only meant for students? What’s the connection between a cold case, a recent murder, and a daughter went missing? Is Paul tricked into this all by Alice, who in the end of the story simply wants Paul for sex without any protection or support during the interrogation by the local police officer?
Or is Lie With Me a construct of Paul looking back in the prison cell on his past in an attempt to free himself from any blame. Naivety meets convictions. It took me a while to get into the story. Sabine Durrant’s style has a lot of descriptive elements, in the first two-thirds not much is happening at all. I wondered whether I was reading a novel, a crime story in development, or another type of book. And then, suddenly, things pieces start to fall in place, and Lie With Me becomes an example of a page-turner until the very end, including the lengthy epilogue.
About the author
Sabine Durrant lives in London, England, with her three children.
I received a free review copy from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for my personal, unbiased review.
