Dan Forrester, piecing his life back together after the tragic death of his son, is approached in a supermarket by a woman who tells him everything he remembers about his life – and his son – is a lie.

Grace Reavey, stricken by grief, is accosted at her mother’s funeral. The threat is simple: pay the staggering sum her mother allegedly owed, or lose everything.

Lucy Davies has been forced from the Met by her own maverick behaviour. Desperate to prove herself in her new rural post, she’s on the hunt for a killer – but this is no small town criminal.

Plunged into a conspiracy that will test each of them to their limits, these three strangers are brought together in their hunt for the truth, whatever it costs. And as their respective investigations become further and further entwined, it becomes clear that at the centre of this tangled web is a threat more explosive than any of them could have imagined.

I love thrillers like Spare Me The Truth. We have three seemingly unconnected characters and we follow their stories knowing that somehow their paths will cross. Three central protagonists also heightens the possibility that not everyone will come through the story unscathed. Will they all turn out to be victims?  Is one of the characters going to cross another?  What if one character can only achieve the outcome they want at the cost of misery to another? But as a reader, what I really need to know is: can the author juggle three big storylines and keep me reading?

Well if that author is CJ Carver then the answer to that last question is most certainly YES. Spare Me The Truth was an absolute blast to read.

From the opening chapters I was hooked on the dilemmas and confusion that Grace was facing. She had just lost her mother but a stranger approached her suggesting that her mother owed a lot of money – Grace had to make good on the debt. Grace realised that she knew little about the life that her mother may have led and now has to find a way to contend with a huge problem that she has inherited.

Dan Forrester is a tragic character. He lost his young son and the trauma of the incident has also robbed Dan of many of his memories – a defence mechanism to allow him to cope with the tragedy.  Dan is getting by and slowly rebuilding his life until one day a chance encounter with a strange woman will lead him to question much of what he believes to be the truth.  The woman clearly knows Dan well but he has no idea who she may be – how much faith can Dan place in the memories that his family and friends have helped him to rebuild?

Also integral to the story in Spare Me The Truth is Lucy Davis. A cop with a troubled past, she is keen to rebuild her reputation and regain the faith of her colleagues.  Lucy believes she is on the trail of a killer, can she find the evidence she needs to prove she is correct and can she ensure that there are no more innocent deaths?

Spare Me The Truth was perfect escapism.  I got drawn into the story and did not want to stop reading, this is exactly what I look for in a book!

Spare Me The Truth is published by Zaffre and is available in paperback and digital formats.

You can order your copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spare-Me-Truth-explosive-Forrester-ebook/dp/B01AC2JERU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1478545908&sr=8-2&keywords=cj+carver