Book Review: One of Them Is Lying by Peter Bailey (@PeterBailey111) #RBRT #Crime #mystery #thriller

I received an e-pub copy of this book from the author in return for a fair and honest review.

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This is probably the twistiest crime-mystery book I have ever read. I became quite dizzy by the end of it.

It begins with when a privileged public student (read: private, this is England) stumbles home covered in blood, urine, and bruises, claiming a teacher attacked him and urinated on him. Rather than go to a hospital, his wealthy, entitled father and the younger trophy wife decide to call the police. Predictably, the media learns about it and goes berserk.

Thus far the characters are all memes, which made me wonder whether I wanted to read further. It seems the father is actually facing bankruptcy for mismanagement of his company and a missing $500,000. The wife is a toned, pampered, covetous women who, if anything, is more haute than her husband. The son, Sebastian, is a sociopath, who revels in hurting people both figuratively and literally.

The teacher he accuses, Miss Fleming, is a large, unattractive, lonely woman, but intelligent and takes no guff from her students. She just insulted Sebastian in front of his friends. So of course, she couldn’t have possibly attacked Sebastian, and Sebastian made up the story to get back at her.

The lone figure of reason is DCI Riley, an Irish policeman who at six foot three and the width of a door, is an imposing character and a pretty smart detective as well. His introduction assured me that the story line would get better. I enjoyed the sometimes humorous interaction between Riley and a new partner assigned to him, George, who is tall, thin as a reed, and tries to remember everything Riley says because he wants to be a detective himself. Riley’s world becomes even more complicated when his wife’s relationship with him suddenly becomes cold and distant, for reasons he cannot discern but is determined to find out.

Riley is not convinced of the truth of Sebastian’s tale, never more so than when Miss Fleming’s modest house is defaced, her windows broken and her car set on fire. And when he learns more about Sebastian.

Riley did a great job discovering details that convince the reader that Miss Fleming is innocent, at least until Riley discovers he is wrong. But how could Sebastian, a model of mental disturbance, be telling the truth? How could Miss Fleming, a good person, be guilty of attacking Sebastian? Was someone else involved? And how? I had to keep reading, following the twisted path and careful thought processes of DCI Riley, fighting through a toxic, tangled mix of lies, manipulation, class warfare and outside threats. This novel kept my mind roiling while I tried to keep all the threads straight and find out if Riley’s wife’s obvious problems are somehow linked to Sebastian.

I challenge mystery and crime fiction readers to test their skills of deduction with this book!

About the author:

Mr. Bailey and his wife live in England. He originally trained as a teacher, but now supports Microsoft windows and ArcSight ESM. His first story was a fictionalized account of a disastrous trip to Las Vegas with a dental abscess. Since then, he has written a vampire story (without any actual vampires) and about a perfectly ordinary day at the office that will last for eternity. This is his sixth book.

You can find the author on Facebook: facebook.com/peter.bailey.940

And on X (Twitter): @peterbailey111