Value Read Apr 20 - Liar Liar, by Mel Sherratt

[Bill]

Mel Sharrett is strong at creating local setting and creating realistic and yet attractive characters. Moving Grace to a community police unit seems a natural turn for her.

[Pat]

Sounds like you've read the earlier books about Grace, Bill. Anything about her that would be helpful to know for readers like me who are meeting her for the first time?

[Bill]

Yes, she is herself related to a crime family, the Steeles.

[Chris]

I'll confess I approached this author with a certain amount of trepidation after reading various comments about her being the new Martina Cole (who I do not like because of the amount of profanity she uses) and an aside somewhere about gratuitous sex scenes. But I was pleasantly surprised even though it is a story focussing on the worst elements in society. The police don't really get much of a look-in, mainly because everyone is lying to them or keeping quiet, and it is really told from the point of view of one victim. So as a detective story, it isn't really, but it was okay.

[Bill]

As is so often the case with promotions, the Martina Cole comparison is flat out wrong. To me Sherratt’s strength is making good characters attractive.

[Patricia]

I just downloaded this from Audible. Can't wait to listen! [I hope it's okay to do audiobooks here?]

[Pat]

Bill wrote: "Yes, she is herself related to a crime family, the Steeles."

THAT certainly presents an interesting aspect to the plots. She wouldn't be likely to call on law enforcement often, or get much help if she did. My interest increases; thank you!

[Chris]

I went straight in with no problem, as she is starting again at a new location, albeit still in Stoke (I assume), and there is plenty of catch-up information when required.

[Mary]

David wrote: "im not sure whether to jump in and read this or start with books 1&2 first."

I didn't feel at a disadvantage by not having read the first two in the series. As Christina noted, there is sufficient back-fill information to give you context, almost too many mentions of the relationship to the Steeles. It read well as a stand alone.

[Bill]

Finished it. I’d love to hear what readers thought of Ruby. At the end we’re told: ‘It was a tough call, but Grace knew she would have done the same in those circumstances.’ I didn’t agree. I thought she was breath-takingly stupid to have concealed from the police such a key item of evidence. I also felt that Dane should have received a much longer sentence. He is obviously too dangerous to be released on parole. But what do you think?

[Bill]

Since 2013, when Mel Sherratt published Somewhere to Hide, we have had more than twenty novels from her - mostly set near Stoke-on-Trent, often on estates. Some feature social workers but mostly police detectives. Here in Liar Liar it is DS Grace Allendale making it her third appearance. Appropriately she has been seconded from Major Crime to Community Policing, her new superior being another of Mel Sherratt’s series characters, Allie Shenton. Someone has dropped a toddler some fifteen feet over the parapet of a first floor walkway at Harrison House. It’s not quite a sink estate, but it has its criminal element. And as Grace discovers as she investigates, no one admits to seeing who did it, including the child’s own mother.

The story is told in two tracks, what happened to Ruby, Tyler’s mum, beginning in 2010, and the present. As each story unfolds, we gradually become aware why Ruby claims to have no ideal what happened. For Grace and her partner Frankie the solution lies less in following clues or interviewing witnesses than in observing how events unfold at the estate, till finally all of Ruby’s back story is revealed.

Most of Mel Sherratt’s principal characters are women of great character whom most of us could adopt at models for appropriate behaviour. But they also generally have some skeleton in their closets or black sheep in their families, and Grace has a whole flock - the criminal Steeles, who are her half-brothers. Fortunately, as is usually the case, criminals distrust each other as much as they the police, and with good reason. But that makes for good dynamics in the plot.

The curtain of fear over the estate and the reluctance of witnesses to reveal what they know is most believable. But it also makes the reader feel frustrated. Sometimes I wanted to scream at the characters, especially Ruby, ‘Just tell the truth.’ It was suspenseful to hang on to find out if Ruby would trust Grace.