It would be unfair to blame the woman I met tonight for turning my life upside down. She didn't. It was already upside down. I just didn't know it.
Recently life has been good for Mallory Hansen: a great job, a lovely home, and a wonderful man, Nathan, to share it with.
But now she must ask herself: is it all built on lies?
A shocking accusation has been made against Nathan, and Mallory doesn't know who to believe. He denies everything, but all the signs point to his guilt. She has learned to trust Nathan, but she also remembers the boy he used to be.
As teenagers, Mallory and Nathan were part of a close-knit group of six friends until a vicious argument drove them apart. Now, fifteen years later, they are back in touch - only to find themselves drawn into a web of mutual distrust, one by one...
The attacks on their lives are skilfully targeted, designed to hit them where they hurt the most, and when a young woman disappears and a baby is abducted, DCI Tom Douglas must try to unravel the past and discover who is the architect of their misery.
A DCI Tom Douglas Thriller
No More Lies by Rachel Abbott was published on 16 February 2023 by Black Dot Publishing and is a DCI Tom Douglas thriller. My thanks to the author who sent my copy as part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour.
Rachel Abbott is an extraordinary good author, and her DCI Tom Douglas series just gets better and better. Whilst it helps to read the previous books in the series, No More Lies can very easily be read as a stand alone story. The author cleverly incorporates the back stories of the main characters within the novel, and does it with ease.
Mallory and Nate are the golden couple. Attractive, successful and wealthy, they seem to have it all. They grew up together in a small town, and although Nate was always keen to date Mallory, she was having none of it. It wasn't until they met again, many years later that they became a couple.
Nate is a corporate lawyer in a well respected firm, but things are not going well for him. He's hidden the fact that he's been accused of serious misconduct from Mallory, and when she finally does find out, she struggles to trust him. It's not that she believes he's done something wrong, it's more the fact that he hid the accusation from her .... or is it? Mallory cannot help but think back to the young Nate that she knew, the boy who dated many girls, casting them aside when he was done with them. But this is not 'her' Nate, he's different now .... or so she wants to believe.
Mallory and Nate were close friends with four other young people back in the day. All of them were a little different to the other kids and they naturally formed a close-knit friendship circle. They haven't seen each other for many years, there was a falling out just before they all made their way to either university or work, and none of them have made the effort to stay in touch.
Until now. Nate is not the only one of the group who is suffering. It soon becomes apparent that terrible things are happening in the lives of the others too, and this brings them back together again.
This is a tense thriller that gripped me from page one. Abbott writes so skilfully, pulling in the reader and then throwing curveball after curveball at them until you really do not have any idea who is behind the events that are causing chaos.
With a couple of exceptions, none of these characters are particularly likeable. However they are all incredibly well created, making them appear so real, warts and all.
We mustn't forget Tom Douglas though, as he really is the star of the show. Dependable and a great copper, he is determined to get to the bottom of these cases, slowly realising that the apparently unrelated incidents on his patch have a common thread - the group of friends are connected to each one. Tom has a great back story, and this continues through this book, adding such depth to his character and leaving the reader wondering just what he's going to be faced with next.
Taut and skilfully written. No More Lies is an excellent addition to this fabulous series and is highly recommended by me.
novels (and one novella) in the DCI Tom Douglas series have combined to sell over four million copies.
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