Fabulous Fiction Firsts #544 - “Oh, what a tangled web we weave...when first we practice to deceive.” ~ Walter Scott

Tue, 07/28/2015 - 8:59pm by muffy

If you are still waiting around for The Girl on the Train (or just looking for the next good thriller), then I suggest you try The Truth and Other Lies * * by German screenwriter Sascha Arango. Right now, this debut is flying somewhat under the media radar but I cannot guarantee that for much longer.

Henry Hayden, best-selling author is often praised for his thrillers of "strange happenings, dark secrets, dangers lurking everywhere, and really brilliant villains". Little does the reading public know fiction resembles the truth, and that this charming, modest and generous man is a carefully constructed facade. With his mistress/editor pregnant and his wife Martha's (who is the actual writer of the novels) untimely death; his past which he has painstakingly kept hidden, is finally catching up with him. Ingeniously weaving more lies and half-truths into a story as the police close in, Henry might just survive.

"A cross between James M. Cain and Patricia Highsmith, with a wide streak of sardonic humor, this is one wicked tale."

The Hand That Feeds You by A.J. Rich, a pseudonym adopted by Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment, for their collaboration on a book their dying friend Katherine Russell Rich didn’t have time to write.(EW reveals the real story in an interview with the authors).

Morgan Prager, a criminal justice grad student returns to her Brooklyn apartment to find the mutilated corpse of her fiancé, Bennett, splayed across her bed and her beloved dogs, a Great Pyrenees, and two pit bulls, covered in blood. When she tries to locate Bennett's parents, she discovers that everything she knows of him is a lie. As the dogs face court mandate destruction, Morgan's research into Bennett's identity has taken on an urgency, especially when she finds herself on a trail littered with the bodies of other women engaged to Bennett.

"Sexy, disturbing, and highly suspenseful, this is a brilliant collaboration between two outstanding writers... who have created an emotionally and erotically charged thriller that vibrates with tension and passion."

Remember Me This Way by Sabine Durrant, a dark psychological thriller that is a departure from her chick lit. novels.

On the first anniversary of her husband Zach's death in a car crash, school librarian Lizzie Carter visits the accident scene in Cornwall for the first time only to find that someone named Xenia has left a bouquet and a love letter for Zach. Then things start being moved around and vanishing from their London house, she becomes convinced that Zach, always unstable and controlling, has faked his death and is just waiting for the right moment to kill her.

"The suspense builds with each page as secrets are revealed and the sense of menace grows at each turn. Durrant's fast-paced psychological thriller will satisfy readers who enjoyed Elizabeth Haynes's Into the Darkest Corner."

* * = 2 starred reviews