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Truth and Lies
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Spoiler Discussion (Sep 2018) Group Read - Truth and Lies, by Caroline Mitchell
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Beth
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rated it 4 stars
Sep 07, 2018 07:04AM
Ah ha! The conversation with Lillian about meeting up with her brother, Damien, reinforces my guess that the brother is responsible for the current kidnapping. Comments like "...the length I would go to ..." Are supporting my theory
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I finished this and thought it was pretty good. Interesting plot and the character as an adult survivor of a horrifying situation turned police officer was really well done. I thought the doubts and fears she had of turning out like her parents were realistically depicted.My only issue was the resolution of the Ellen storyline. I thought that was a little over the top.
Ellen? The aunt of Hermione??? What issue did she have?
Maybe I have the name wrong ...Did you finish I don't want to spoil it for you.
Yes am done. Did you mean Elaine? Sister of main character and mistress of Paddy?
Beth wrote: "Yes am done. Did you mean Elaine? Sister of main character and mistress of Paddy?"Yes! I just found it a little hard to take that Elaine is the sister she thought died, that started everything. And the lengths she went through without just contacting her.
Yes I agree about Elaine who ran away to live with relatives. And these relatives didn't listen to her stories and call authorities???
I didn't see this one coming at all. After Geraldine returned from 'somewhere', I though she was the captor, and I thought Elaine, who knew far too much about the Hermione case, was also involved. However, it drew the plot together perfectly for John Thompson to be pulling the strings, since his motive was entirely believable. (I did have a bit of an issue with a vet that would let the kitty suffer like that.)I agree that Elaine's real identity was a bit too much - it rather felt as if it were thrown in. If there'd been some sort of clue earlier in the book, it would have worked better, and I don't quite believe that she would go to the extent of seducing Paddy just because he worked with Amy.
Mod
Yes, I think I'm looking forward to the sequel and seeing how things turn out for her. As many of us have noted, Mitchell did a bang-up job with characterisation. We really got to know Amy and Paddy, and their personalities were consistent with their experiences.
Mod
Since first bursting onto the publishing scene with a true ghost story, Paranormal Intruder, the former police officer Caroline Mitchell has been one of the hardest working writers in the criminal fiction field. She started with DC Jennifer Knight, whose distinctive supernatural powers of perception led her to catch murderers who were not only demonic, they really were demons! I really loved her. One of the principal weaknesses addicts of detective fiction reveal is an allergic response to the paranormal.
I expect every keen reader of police detective novels has a personal police force. As we read different authors, we recruit some of their main characters and reject others: Cassie Maddox and Lacey Flint are outstanding officers on mine - but I’d not let ‘Scorcher’ Kennedy or Antoinette Conway into the squad room, or any of those gross middle-aged men with bad figures who do Andy Dalziel imitations in so many current procedurals. Mitchell prefers to limit her detectives to three outings: Jennifer Knight was succeeded by Ruby Preston, a detective with more conventional abilities though with some dubious relationships. I’d definitely want Knight on my squad but Preston failed her probational in Love You to Death. Now we have Amy Winter in Truth and Lies. Winter’s distinction is having biological parents who were serial killers: sort of like Fred and Ruth West. Amy’s father is dead, but her mother is serving a life-tariff. As Amy was adopted by a police detective’s family and took their name, the force don’t know her real biological inheritance. But now her real mother is trying to manipulate her by offering to shed light on some of their old murders. Professionally of course that is a no-no, but locating the remains of the victims to help their families assuage their grief is a morally acceptable justification for cutting corners.
And whilst Amy is dealing with her imperiously monstrous mother, a child goes missing along with her pet cat, which provides a motive to introduce another delightfully unusual investigator, a veterinary expert on feline forensics. That alone should make many of us want to read this book. In addition to the Jennifer Knight stories and Ruby Preston, Mitchell has written a could of stand alones. Witness is a psychological abuse story and I hated it. Silent Victim is a school story about an abusive student/teacher relationship that quite gripped me. So I was not surprised that in Truth and Lies Caroline Mitchell let her plot run away with her, tying up more loose ends than were left undone in the first place. Still, it’s an excellent story, Amy is an appealing character, and her mother is someone you’ll love to hate. I shall give The Secret Child, the next in the series, a chance.
Bill wrote: "Sorry I'm a little late. Since first bursting onto the publishing scene with a true ghost story, Paranormal Intruder, the former police officer Caroline Mitchell has been one of the hardest worki..."
Just saw this post, I must have missed it in my notifications. This was an excellent story with a well defined protagonist. I would read more of this writer's work.
As far as my "personal police force" I love Morse, I kept putting off reading the last in the series because as most people know he dies in that book. I also have a fondness for the original Andrew Dalziel and PD James Dalgleish. I'd probably have George Gently as well (to balance out Dalziel's bluster.) Vera Stanhope would also be in the crew.
