Because I’m reviewing mysteries for Library Journal, I’m picking up books that I wouldn’t normally read. That means I’m discovering authors and books that others read but I’ve passed on because I was more interested in other books. Theresa Schwegel’s standalone, The Lies We Tell, is one that I normally wouldn’t have picked up, despite my love of police procedurals.
Gina Simonetti is a Chicago police detective with a secret. If she reveals she has been diagnosed with multiple schlerosis, it will jeopardize her job, her insurance, and her custody of her brother’s toddler, Isabel. But, when she follows Johnny Marble, a suspect, into a hospital stairwell, her weakness betrays her. She makes a misstep, loses physical control of her body, and Marble overpowers her and takes her gun. Now, she’s even more desperate. There’s a man out there who could tell the truth as to what happened in that stairwell. She has to find him before someone else on the police force does.
Gina’s frantic search takes her to family members and others who claim to have been assaulted by Marble. But, Marble’s mother is an unreliable witness, a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s. And, a detective sympathetic to her need for answers discovers other claims don’t ring true. The complex story takes Gina Simonetti back to the one place she doesn’t want to be, the hospital.
Who is telling the truth in Schwegel’s novel? It’s obvious that Gina is lying to everyone around her, her brother, Isabel’s sitter, the police department. It’s a convoluted story with so many messed up characters. But, I’d suggest that fans of Karin Slaughter try Schwegel’s The Lies We Tell.
Theresa Schwegel’s website is www.theresaschwegel.com
The Lies We Tell by Theresa Schwegel. Minotaur Books. 2017. ISBN 9781250001788 (hardcover), 368p.
*****
FTC Full Disclosure – I received the book to review for a journal.
