Book #12: The Lie Maker by Linwood Barclay
The Lie Maker by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In the book's opening chapter, Jack Givins' father Michael is being taken away, as part of the witness protection programme. Jack grows up to be an unsuccessful author, until he is hired to write a new kind of fiction. His new job is to write fake backstories for people given new identities the witness protection programme. Jack decides this is a good opportunity, however, to try and get in contact with his father.
Meanwhile, Jack's girlfriend Lana, is sent to investigate a string of disappearing persons, who show up dead, and as new information comes to light about Jack's dad, it starts to appear that he may be connected.
With this book, I found I had to pay attention a lot at times. It would jump around in time a few times, with some flashbacks to stories involving Jack's father shortly after he got separated from his family. Some of the chapters were also narrated by Jack, giving the audience more insight into his and his fathers' characters. A few chapters were in the form of stream of consciousness type dialogue where it's not clear who is speaking until later on in the book.
I'd found a couple of recent Linwood Barclay books I'd read difficult to get on with (particularly "Look Both Ways"), but this seemed to be a return to form. There were a lot of plot twists that I didn't see coming, so I was kept guessing as to what would happen next. I would love to know whether the witness protection programme really hires authors to write fake backstories, or whether this is a product of Linwood Barclay's imagination.
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