THE GOOD LIAR

A moment of triumph turns into terror in this dark thriller.

Claudia Atkins O’Sheil is about to enter what should be a celebration. A forensic examiner, she’s created a method of blood-spatter analysis that’s a huge success, boosting not only her reputation but that of her mentor and boss, Lord Philip Ardmore. The party at the Royal College of Forensic Scientists in London is meant to praise her, but she’s quaking with fear because she intends to reveal a secret that will destroy everything. Flashback to a similar party exactly a year ago. She was reeling then, too, still reacting to the recent, sudden death of her beloved husband, James, a lawyer. She was struggling to raise their two teenage sons alone, but at least her career had taken a turn for the better. That gala is interrupted, though, when she and Philip are called to the scene of a gruesome double murder. It isn’t so Claudia can evaluate the blood spatter (although she does)—it’s because one of the victims was one of Philip’s oldest friends. Jonty Stewart and his much younger fiancée, Francesca Emmanuel, had been stabbed to death, and their trained guard dog had been shot. Everything points to the murder being personal, not random, and in short order there’s an arrest. But Claudia isn’t convinced, and she can’t help investigating, even though it’s not her job. Charlie Taunton, James’ colleague and friend, gently warns her off as he tries to renew his on-again, off-again (and not always healthy) relationship with Claudia’s sister, Gina. An addict who’s sober at the moment, Gina is living with Claudia and helping with the boys, but she’s always been a loose cannon. Mina has long been adept at suspenseful pacing and at creating flawed but engaging characters, and here she paints Claudia as something of an anthropologist—a Glasgow native, she’s constantly trying to interpret the codes and hierarchies of the English upper classes. As her search for the killer intensifies, it both expands into other dark doings and draws alarmingly close to home.

A shocking but satisfying ending caps off this taut tale of murder among the privileged.