Monday's Lie by Jamie Mason

From Goodreads

From the acclaimed author of the “ripping good” (The New York Times) debut novel Three Graves Full comes a new thriller about a woman who digs into her unconventional past to confirm what she suspects: her husband isn't what she thought he was.

Dee Aldrich rebelled against her off-center upbringing when she married the most conventional man she could imagine: Patrick, her college sweetheart. But now, years later, her marriage is falling apart and she’s starting to believe that her husband has his eye on a new life... a life without her, one way or another.

Haunted by memories of her late mother Annette, a former covert operations asset, Dee reaches back into her childhood to resurrect her mother’s lessons and the “spy games” they played together, in which Dee learned memory tricks and, most importantly, how and when to lie. But just as she begins determining the course of the future, she makes a discovery that will change her life: her mother left her a lot of money and her own husband seems to know more about it than Dee does. Now, before it’s too late, she must investigate her suspicions and untangle conspiracy from coincidence, using her mother’s advice to steer her through the blind spots. The trick, in the end, will be in deciding if a “normal life” is really what she wants at all.

With pulse-pounding prose and atmospheric settings, Monday’s Lie is a thriller that delivers more of the “Hitchcockian menace” (Peter Straub) that made Three Graves Full a critical hit. For fans of the Coen brothers or Gillian Flynn, this is a book you won’t want to miss.

My thoughts 

3.5 stars. My thanks to the Publishers and NetGalley for letting me read a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

This was a rather gentle wordy at times thriller, it's not an action packed seat of your pants ride at all. There was a definite undercurrent running through the story as to what Annette used to do as a job, they knew she was a spy of sorts but not to the depth of her involvement. Dee was intrigued in her Mother's past and wanted to find out more. Annette was a single mother to Dee and her brother Simon, she taught them to be observant in all things. She would often reward them for their powers of observation.

Dee in an attempt to break free from her rather unusual life, marries Patrick a rather ordinary sort of bloke. As Dee and Patrick's marriage begins to flounder Dee has flashbacks to the past and we find out about her. As the story develops and we begin to see the relationship between Mother and daughter, we realise why Dee is the way she is.

However, like Mother like daughter she has a very inquisitve mind and begins to doubt her husband's faithfulness towards her, as she begins to dig certain aspects of his life come to the fore unfortunately.

With help from others she finds out some very disturbing things about her husband, how does she deal with the knowledge? To answer that question you'll need to read the book.

To be honest as I was reading the book I was waiting for some real action to occur and if that's what you're looking for in a thriller then you'll not find it in this one. The real action takes place towards the end of the book as the story hots up and things escalate.

Every family has it's secrets and none of us will ever know exactly how others are thinking or feeling. This story is littered with secrets and in the words of Annette ''Once Upon a time ...''. Grab a cuppa and a copy of this and read on.