She Treads Softly: Fatal Lies

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Fatal Lies

Fatal Lies by Anita Waller
10/17/23; 282 pages
Boldwood Books
Forrester Detective Agency #2

Fatal Lies by Anita Waller is a highly recommended mystery and the second book in the Forrester Detective agency series.

They are remodeling and expanding their office space after Matt Forester, his partner Steve, and sister Hermia inherited the Forrester Detective Agency. A former DI, Matt's life partner Karen, remains a DS with the police force. The agency has also hired a new office manager, Carol, an astute woman who is actually over qualified for the job, but wants to work. The first case covered starts out as a burglary but turns into a much more serious crime.

The group all work well together with each other and the police as they investigate the cases, large and small, presented. It helps that all the characters are portrayed as individuals, with a few of them much more compelling than others, but they are all appealing and sympathetic.

The narrative is told through multiple points-of-view. Fatal Lies reads like a cozy mystery that is part private investigations mixed with a police procedural, which works well together. The main case is solved, and a bit predictable, as are the other cases, but it is a very comfortable, enjoyable read. Warning, it ends on a cliff hanger.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Boldwood Books via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.