Detective Fiction, Crimes - Fiction, Women Detectives - Fiction, Occupations - Fiction
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Overview
Rising star Jan Burke -- whom reviewers have consistently compared to Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton, and Robert Parker -- surpasses already high expectations in Liar, her most riveting work to date.Intrepid sleuth/reporter Irene Kelly barely has time to recover from the shock of learning that her estranged aunt has been killed before being blindsided by an even bigger surprise -- she's the number one suspect!With the LAPD biting fast at her heels, Irene searches for her aunt's son, Travis -- a young man who wants nothing to do with Irene or any of the Kelly clan. The seeds of contention sown by family members no longer living are now being reaped by the next generation in ways no one would ever have expected. As deeply buried family skeletons are unearthed, the line between stalker and stalked becomes increasingly blurred, with dangerous consequences for Irene. She casts her lot with Travis, who she believes is the killer's next target, but her efforts to protect him place her squarely in harm's way. Now Irene must dodge not only the arm of the law but also the reach of a killer who appears to want to settle the score of an age-old family grudge. Only by sorting out the truth from the lies in a skein of old family secrets involving bigamy and adultery, alibis and murder, and secrets encrypted in hobo signs will she learn who has begun to kill again -- and why.In Liar, Jan Burke delivers her trademark skillfully woven tale with complex characters, gripping suspense, and heart-stopping action, but this time Irene Kelly must play a deadly game with the highest and most personal stakes ever.
Editorials
Jeri Wright
Page-turning suspense and tight plotting kept me riveted....[I]t is the characters and the relationships that make this book, and this series, such an outstanding one....The plot is nicely complicated, with the connections between past and present adding to the intrigue. All in all, Liar is excellent; a wonderful read and just what I have come to expect from this series. —The Mystery Reader.comJeri Wright
Page-turning suspense and tight plotting kept me riveted....[I]t is the characters and the relationships that make this book, and this series, such an outstanding one....The plot is nicely complicated, with the connections between past and present adding to the intrigue. All in all, Liar is excellent; a wonderful read and just what I have come to expect from this series.— The Mystery Reader.com
Kirkus Reviews
Who's buried in the grave Irene Kelly's sister Barbara had already picked out for herself in the family plot? Realizing that it's her long-unseen aunt, Briana Maguire, a file clerk who became a hit-and-run victim two weeks ago, leads Irene into only deeper mysteries. Why did Briana disinherit her rolling-stone son Travis in favor of Irene, who hadn't seen her for 25 years? What exactly did the family quarrel that kept Irene and Briana apart have to do with Briana's bigamous husband, Arthur Sperry (ne' Spanning), or the murder 20 years ago of Arthur's first wife, sugar-beet heiress Gwendolyn DeMont? Why is the DeMont murder, so long dormant, now threatening Irene's life via fires and bombs? Who is Harold Richmond, the unscrupulous private eye who's been stalking Irene, working for? And how can the rifts—chasms, really—in the DeMont and Spanning and Maguire families be mended after all the suspicion and distrust over adultery and bigamy and murder have festered for all these years? The questions are reminiscent of Ross Macdonald at his thorniest. But Burke, whose return to straight detection after the imperiled-hostage scenario of Hocus (1997) produces the biggest and most complex of her six novels, has Macdonald's sense of family doom without his control of subplots and clues or his economy in managing revelations. The result is a warmly detailed extended-family portrait that conveys a constant sense of menace without providing a compelling payoff or, in retrospect, a strong central premise.Book Details
Published
June 7, 2011
Publisher
Simon & Schuster
Pages
352
ISBN
9781451655988