The Good Lie by A.R. Torre
Mystery/ Thriller
July 20, 2021
Thomas and Mercer
Review by Jen
The Good Lie by A.R. Torre was a terrific, twisty, addicting murder mystery. Dr. Gwen Moore is a psychiatrist who specializes in helping violent, or potentially violent, people cope with their aggressive thoughts. She basically helps murderers or would be murderers.
One of her clients and his wife are found dead. She knows her client had fantasies about killing his wife. It looks at first glance like the wife had a heart attack and her client killed himself out of grief. The good doctor is feeling off about that because her client was a pharmacist and she knows he could give something to his wife that would cause a heart attack. Gwen’s emotions were odd to me. She questioned if she herself could’ve prevented the deaths…she also didn’t seem too torn up about it.
Gwen goes to their funeral and visits a dive bar afterward to decompress. There she meets Defense Attorney, Kavin. They start chatting, and it turns out that Kavin was also at the funeral. Gwen’s client was his son’s pharmacist. They have sexy times (although there’s no spice, this isn’t that kind of book!) and Gwen learns that Kavin’s son is one of six young men that have been murdered by a serial killer. The serial killer is known for torturing good looking, white, wealthy, young men for weeks, then carving a heart in their chests and leaving their dismembered bodies to be found. Pretty gruesome stuff, and poor Kavin is a grieving father on a mission to find his son’s killer.
Victim number seven miraculously escapes death, runs home and immediately points his finger at a local high school teacher as the killer. His story keeps changing and there’s something off about him, too. Even his own mom recognizes that something is wrong with her son. Kavin doesn’t buy any of it either and decides to defend the accused killer, pro-bono. He hires Gwen to build a psychological profile of the killer in an effort to prove it’s not the guy in custody. This is her dream job and she’s giddy to get started.
I loved this book!!! I couldn’t put it down. I was kept guessing for quite awhile and even when I put most of the story together, it still held some crazy surprises. Gwen has one scary, messed up brain. Kavin has his own deep secrets. They’re super attracted to each other AND they don’t trust each other. Not. One. Bit. I inhaled this book. It was a refreshing fast paced break from my normal romance reads. Grab it!
Grade A
Sounds intriguing—although I’ve kinda gotten burnt out on psychological suspense where the heroine connects with the wrong person. Also—what the explicitness level of the murder & mayhem? Im not opposed to knowing what happened, but I’d rather not have my nose rubbed in it.
Fun fact: A. R. Torre also publishes romance under the name Alessandra Torre. I read her duet, FILTHY VOWS & TWISTED MARRIAGE, about a couple opening their relationship to a third party. Perhaps she’s pulling a Victoria Dahl and is going to publish books in a different genre under a different name.
Oh—it’s on KU! I downloaded it immediately! Talk about a lack of impulse control—at least where books are concerned.
I hope you like it! Now that KU is allowing more books per month…go for it. Throw caution to the wind. :)
I read Hollywood Dirt by her romance alter ego and really liked it. I need to try more of her books.
I finished THE GOOD LIE last night and thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it. However, without revealing any spoilers, I do think there were a couple of loose ends/red herrings that Torre should have either tied up or eliminated altogether. One Involves Robert’s late wife, particularly how she died. I kept waiting for more information about that. Possibly, Torre deliberately left that ambiguous, but it just felt like a weird unresolved plot point. Second was Robert’s suspicions (long before he meets Gwen) about the identity of the serial killer. Why didn’t he take his evidence to law enforcement as soon as he thought he’d figured things out? Those are minor issues, however, in a book that was twisty and compulsively readable.