Everything is Lies
Bewertet mit 5 Sternen
One evening when Sophia is out with her colleagues, she gets a strange phone call from her mother who asks her to come back home. It is always the same and thus, she cuts her short and goes on amusing herself. The next morning, the bad conscience is nagging and she gets in the car to visit her parents. What she finds in their house is horrible: her mother hanging from a tree, her father badly injured. What happened? The police soon close the file, for them the case is clear: an extended suicide. But when Sophia find her mother’s diaries, she is convinced that her mother would never have attempted suicide. And what about the burglaries? Over months, her parents had been the victims of break-ins. The deeper Sophia digs in her mother Nina’s past, the more complex and strange things seem to be, but there are not many people who believe her.
Helen Callaghan caught me immediately. Even though the beginning leads into a completely different way, centring about Sophia’s work at an architectural agency, she soon accelerates and with the first part of Nina’s diary, I was completely absorbed by the novel.
The most striking part is definitely Nina’s past in the cult she joined as a student. It is a wonderful example of how easy it is to manipulate a young woman who lacks self-confidence and experience. Cleverly they approach her and they use the right amount of charm to trick her into their community. At the moment she arrives at their house, there is no way out anymore for her, she is already too deeply involved emotionally to think and act clearly.
The thriller is full of suspense, offering twists and turns at the perfect moment to keep the plot running on. The protagonist also seems to be quite authentic and you can easily sympathize with her.
I really enjoyed the novel, it is a most accomplished psychological thriller which leaves nothing to be desired.