The Good Liar

Everyone in the book club finished this book. We felt that the first part of the book was a lot slower than we expected and we wouldn't really call this a thriller as such. Having said that, the way it was written makes it feel like this could be a good film or tv series.

The main character we felt was someone who was a born psychopath, and as such he would be a born survivor. We worried about anyone who crossed his path because you knew it wasn't going to end well for them. Given that Roy was such a born evil person and Betty was so good (even with what had happened to her) we wondered whether this was a story nature versus nurture, or maybe a character study rather than a thriller.

Each of the stories we saw about Roy's history were really odd and he seemed to have a lot of strokes of luck, but maybe as were looking into his history through his eyes we were getting things through a highly unreliable narrator?

Overall we gave this book 6 out of 10.

Nicholas Searle writes a fantastic debut novel. The Good Liar is a compulsive read that drip feeds you information from the background of the lead character, Roy, a con-man who is out to trick his way to a fortune.

It is well written, and has some great twists and turns as the story unfolds. You are left hoping that somehow Roy won't get away with his latest scam, stealing the savings from his new girlfriend Betty. Despite warnings from family, Betty is dogged in determination to continue their new found relationship all the while Roy is plotting to con her.

You will not be disappointed if you pick this up for a read.

"This book was excellent. It was described on the back as the ‘psychological thriller of 2016’ and it is not wrong. However saying that the reason it is my second choice was that the first 80 pages were reasonably slow. However turning into Chapter 8 and ‘Flooding’ the story changes and it takes a different path from the one I was expecting. Up until then I just thought Roy was a nasty conman and just trying to extract money from the lovely Betty. However, suddenly I had a lot of unanswered questions that I wanted answering – Roy was clearly a conman, but who was Betty? As we went backwards to various periods in time from the sixties to the Second World War and introduced to engaging characters such as Lilli, I was hooked. Why is Roy so awful and why does he want to hurt everyone? The story unravels and as the book says on the back ‘This is a book that will lie to you’ and it did. Superb read."

"This a fascinating book, well-written and very cleverly arranged, developing from being the story of a conman to a much more involved plot with a clever twist. As this was revealed, I had to go back through the book to find the clues I had missed to each new revelation. It is almost a book written in reverse, revealing more about the protagonists’ history as the story unravelled. It made me re-evaluate the main characters with each new episode of their lives, until I felt the denouement was exactly what the conman deserved This a very cleverly constructed book which made me feel more outraged by his acts as each new story was revealed and the twist of identity was very unexpected. A gripping read."

Full of twists and turns this is a great book for reading groups, lots to discuss!