I have previously read author Rachel Amphlett’s detective Kay Hunter series which I have always enjoyed, so I was intrigued when I got the email inviting me onto the blog tour for her latest novel a stand-alone psychological thriller, The Friend Who Lied.
The Friend Who Lied starts as Lisa wakes up after a life saving kidney transplant. The last thing she remembered was being in an escape room with her friends. Now one of them is dead and Lisa’s life has been saved thanks to his kidney. As she starts to recover she tries to piece together exactly what happened in that room and begins to uncover a web of lies that shows they are all hiding something. As closely guarded secrets begin to emerge Lisa realises that she can trust no one and that someone doesn’t want her to uncover the truth.
This was an interesting read that kept me entertained during a couple of nights on my own in Liverpool. As someone who thinks the idea of entering an escape room is frankly ridiculous (You might as well just travel on LNER somewhere, it’s the same concept being trapped in a tiny box for a few hours with a bunch of people you don’t like and no way of escape until your time is up!) I thought the premise of this story was intriguing. You know that in a novel as soon as you meet a group of friends that knew each other at university it is never going to turn out well. There will always be some dark history between them and this group were no different. They have a bond that comes from long friendship and shared knowledge but this also hides fragile relationships and petty jealousy.
One of the things I really liked about this book was the way it was written from the different viewpoints of the main characters. None of them were particularly likeable and I really struggled to warm to any of them including Lisa. However this did not detract but rather added to the story. It meant that my opinions kept flitting back and forth as to how I hoped the novel would pan out. Each of the characters had their own quirks and issues that became clear as the story moved forward, and they soon started to intertwine towards a devastating conclusion.
I must confess that I did sort of guess the end pretty much from the start, however without giving any spoilers I was close but no cigar as they say. This was a good read that was an entertaining way to pass a few hours.
To find out what others thought of the novel visit the rest of the stops on the blog tour:
She now wields a pen instead of a plectrum and writes crime fiction and spy novels, including the Dan Taylor and English Spy Mysteries espionage novels and theDetective Kay Hunter British police procedural series.
She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and the Crime Writers Association, with the Italian foreign rights for her debut novel, White Gold sold to Fanucci Editore’s TIMECrime imprint, and the first four books in the Dan Taylor espionage series contracted to Germany’s Luzifer Verlag.
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