The Lying Room by Nicci French
Genre: Psychological Thriller/Mystery
Published: 1 October 2019, William Morrow
Swathi’s Rating: 4/5
Verdict: Relentlessly intelligent and highly original!
About the Book:
One little secret between a married woman, her lover, and a killer.
It should have been just a mid-life fling. A guilty indiscretion that Neve Connolly could have weathered. An escape from twenty years of routine marriage to her overworked husband, and from her increasingly distant children. But when Neve pays a morning-after visit to her lover, Saul, and finds him brutally murdered, their pied-à-terre still heady with her perfume, all the lies she has so painstakingly stitched together threaten to unravel.
After scrubbing clean every trace of her existence from Saul’s life—and death—Neve believes she can return to normal, shaken but intact. But she can’t get out of her head the one tormenting question: what was she forgetting?
An investigation into the slaying could provide the answer. It’s brought Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Hitching, and Neve’s worst fears, to her door. But with every new lie, every new misdirection to save herself, Neve descends further into the darkness of her betrayal—and into more danger than she ever imagined. Because Hitching isn’t the only one watching Neve. So is a determined killer who’s about to make the next terrifying move in a deadly affair….
Swathi’s Thoughts:
The Lying Room by Nicci French is a psychological/domestic thriller set London. It’s the story of Neve Connolly whose affair with her boss turns her life into hell when she finds him beaten to death in his flat. Who killed Saul and why?
Neve Connolly is a well respected, balanced woman with twenty years of marriage, 3 kids, and a solid job. She’s the woman who is there for everyone offering her piece of mind, always kind and stable minded. So when her boss drops dead, and the police starts investigating her colleagues, her name is often popped into the conversation either by her friends or through the evidences that seem to point at her. Nothing seems to escape the watchful eyes of Detective Hitching, but Neve is cleverer, isn’t she? She would go to any extent to save her life, and her family from any danger!
This book was a slow burn, as it took its time to settle and drop the ultimate bombshell on the readers. The chapters are lengthy and descriptive, and mainly focussing on Neve’s POVs. I could almost picture Neve’s conversation with the detective and it sounds too dangerous to face, especially when there are chances that she’ll be framed for murder. Yet she remains calm and collected. Tensions are all around the place and it gets terrifying as the chase begins and Neve has to stay strong and play the detective herself among all the chaos in her life.
I’d recommend this book to fans of psychological thrillers who’d love a relentlessly intelligent premise. Many thanks to the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are solely mine and in no way biased.
Meet the Author:
Nicci French is the pseudonym of English wife-and-husband team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. Their acclaimed novels of psychological suspense, including the international bestselling Frieda Klein series, have sold more than 8 million copies around the world.
