February 19

All The Little Lies – Chris Curran

After a lifetime of secrets how far would you go for the truth?

An unputdownable new psychological thriller, full of twists you won’t see coming, from Chris Curran.

Your whole life has been a lie…

One email is all it takes to turn Eve’s world upside down. It contains a picture of her true birth mother, Stella, and proves that Eve’s entire life with her adoptive parents has been a lie.

Now she must unravel the mystery of Stella’s dark past. But what Eve finds will force her to take enormous risks, which put her – and her new-born baby – in immediate danger…

 

I purchased this book with the intention of providing a review.

Eve is an expectant mum-to-be when a friend emails her an article about a young artist who created a brief stir in the art-world several years ago.  The artist in question was on the cusp of greatness when she met a tragic end and died under mysterious circumstances.

Eve had never heard of the artist but when she looked at the photograph which accompanied the article there could be no doubt that this was Eve’s mother. She immediately wants answers – why did her adoptive parents not tell her about her real mother?  What happened that her mother died so young?  Why are the circumstances of her death considered to be mysterious?

This is a terrific family drama story from Chris Curran. Working with a small cast of characters we follow Eve as she starts trying to find out what happened to her birth mother – a stranger to Eve but surprisingly well known to her foster parents.

As you may expect there are consequences to raking up long forgotten stories and the more that Eve discovers the more she realises that her family have kept secrets from her.  But additional dangers lurk…

Eve’s mother, Stella, died under mysterious circumstances and the reader gets to spend time with Stella seeing how the last days and weeks of her life played out. Will someone who knew Stella now look to prevent Eve from digging into the circumstances surrounding Stella’s death? It is a very real possibility and Eve and her family are in more danger than they may realise.

I do enjoy domestic dramas when they are as well told as All The Little Lies. You know everyone is keeping secrets, you know some are deliberately telling lies. Can you work out where the truth is to be found?  I’d strongly urge you to read All The Little Lies to find out!

 

 

All The Little Lies is published by Killer Reads and is available in paperback and digital format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Little-Lies-unputdownable-psychological-ebook/dp/B07K23KH3S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550530059&sr=8-1&keywords=all+the+little+lies

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July 2

The Dali Deception – Adam Maxwell (audiobook)

Five criminals. Two forgeries. And one masterpiece of a heist.

Violet Winters—a professional thief born of a good, honest thief-and-con-artist stock— has been offered the heist of a lifetime. Steal a priceless Salvador Dali from the security-obsessed chairman of the Kilchester Bank and replace it with a forgery.

The fact that the “painting” is a signed, blank canvas doesn’t matter. It’s the challenge that gives Violet that familiar, addicting rush of adrenaline. Her quarry rests in a converted underground Cold War bunker. One way in, one way out. No margin for error.

But the reason Violet fled Kilchester is waiting right where she left him—an ex-lover with a murderous method for dumping a girlfriend. If her heist is to be a success, there will have to be a reckoning, or everything could go spinning out of control.

Her team of talented misfits assembled, Violet sets out to re-stake her claim on her reputation, exorcise some demons, and claim the prize. That is, if her masterpiece of a plan isn’t derailed by a pissed-off crime boss—or betrayal from within her own ranks.

 

In theory this should be one of the easier reviews to write. I could just proclaim “I LOVED THIS BOOK” and whack a 5 star comment onto Twitter.  Job done.

Not quite…that would be criminally understating how much I enjoyed Adam Maxwell’s fantastically fun crime caper The Dali Deception.  I hope “crime caper” is an acceptable description but I cannot find a more apt snappy description.  It was shades of Oceans 11 (though Violet’s crew are fewer than eleven), it had the gangster pizzazz of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and the humour of Hot Fuzz.  I can only apologise that all my movie references are so out of date…I don’t see many films these days!

Violet is a crook (one of the nice ones).  She was forced to leave Kilchester after a planned robbery went wrong – well when her boyfriend sabotaged her plan. Now she is back and it does not take long before a new opportunity presents its-self – steal an original Dali and replace it with a replica so the crime goes undetected. Tricky, but Violet has a plan oh and if she should happen to cross paths with her treacherous ex then there may be the chance to put a few things straight there too.

This was an audiobook listen and I grudged the time that my commute ended and I had to pause the story.  Violet’s plan to steal an original (and most unusual) Dali from a heavily guarded underground location was brilliantly kept under wraps by the author who teased out clues as to how the heist would play out as the story unfolded.

She recruits a wheel-man, a computer expert, a con man and her muscle – all are wonderfully depicted in the story and they all clash, then bond and fall foul of calamity.  You cannot help but love them.

Every good story also needs a villain and Kilchester’s criminal underworld is certainly ruled by a big personality (even if that personality is not contained within a big body).

Always important for an audiobook – the narrator.  Big shout to RJ Alldred at this point, she was perfect and I hope to hear her narrate more stories soon – by far the clearest (and most pleasant) voice I have enjoyed listening to on my daily commute.

Did I mention that I loved this story?  It’s true – an easy 5 star read (or listen in this case).

 

The Dali Deception is available in digital, paperback and audio format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dali-Deception-Kilchester-Book-ebook/dp/B01G3VAEIW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1530549957&sr=1-1&keywords=the+dali+deception

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