Once a Liar

by A.F. Brady

Amazon | B-A-M | B & N

Paperback: 384 pages

Publisher: Park Row; Original edition (January 29, 2019)

In this electrifying psychological thriller, a high-powered sociopath meets his reckoning when he’s accused of the brutal murder of his mistress.

Did he kill Charlie Doyle? And if he didn’t…who did?

Peter Caine, a cutthroat Manhattan defense attorney, worked ruthlessly to become the best at his job. On the surface, he is charming and handsome, but inside he is cold and heartless. He fights without remorse to acquit murderers, pedophiles and rapists.

When Charlie Doyle, the daughter of the Manhattan DA—and Peter’s former lover—is murdered, Peter’s world is quickly sent into a tailspin. He becomes the prime suspect as the DA, a professional enemy of Peter’s, embarks on a witch hunt to avenge his daughter’s death, stopping at nothing to ensure Peter is found guilty of the murder.

In the challenge of his career and his life, Peter races against the clock to prove his innocence. As the evidence mounts against him, he’s forced to begin unraveling his own dark web of lies and confront the sins of his past. But the truth of who killed Charlie Doyle is more twisted and sinister than anyone could have imagined…

“A.F. Brady delivers a knockout sophomore effort. Peter Caine has a very Patrick Bateman air about him, and the whole story sizzles with sinister madness and incessant tension right to the last page. Not to be missed.” —J.T. Ellison, NYT Bestselling author of Tear Me Apart

“A smart, nuanced and spine-chilling portrayal of a sociopath walking among us… Brady’s depth of knowledge and skillful hand make us root for him in spite of everything he may—or may not—have done. Once a Liar is a thriller you won’t soon forget.” —Wendy Walker, bestselling author of All Is Not Forgotten

“Brady is a master of intense characters and riveting storylines.” —Kaira Rouda, bestselling author of Best Day Ever and The Favorite Daughter

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Claire has been living in my house for eight years, but I still can’t fully acclimate to cohabitating with another human being with her own will and own needs… I still stumble over her things, crash into her when she stands between me and my destination and I can never remember how she takes her coffee.

I realize that I am lying to myself as much as I’m lying to everyone else. I’m not in control, and I see now that I never have been. I’ve just lied so much that I believe myself.

“You, sir—” he leans forward and bores a hole in my face with his penetrating eyes “— have a monster inside of you. The only question is, can you keep it contained? That is up to you and you alone.”

My Review:

I was enthralled by this deviously clever tale of Peter Caine, a highly successful and brilliant criminal defense attorney who had become as contemptible and loathsome as the wealthy yet repulsive criminals he represented. Peter didn’t start out that way but had become morally bankrupt, a prolific liar, a social fraud, a manipulative and narcissistic sociopath, and an atrocious human being. He had callously abandoned his child and avoided having any type of relationship with him, seeing his mere existence as a nuisance until deciding that taking custody of his motherless child would be good for his image. He put on a performance when required in public but he had long ago buried his emotional self and selfishly found human interactions to be an arduous waste of his energy. But was he a murderer?   I couldn’t decide, but I really didn’t think so as he seemed too arrogant and emotionally lazy to have committed such a passionate act, although… he might well have if he felt his well-crafted persona was threatened.

Peter was despicable and I despised him, deeply; yet the wily wordsmith known as A. F. Brady wove such a beguiling tale I was incapable of putting my Kindle down. Her word voodoo was far too strong. I was captivated, too invested, hopelessly intrigued, and deeply engrossed. I couldn’t tear myself away from this cunningly contrived story and read it in a day. The storylines were adroitly plotted, insidiously sly, and quickly sucked me into the vile vortex of Peter’s inner musings. I don’t believe I even took a full breath until the last page.   It was wicked good!

About A. F. Brady

A.F. Brady is a New York State Licensed Mental Health Counselor/Psychotherapist. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Brown University and two Masters degrees in Psychological Counseling from Columbia University. She is a life-long New Yorker and resides in Manhattan with her husband and their family.

Connect with A. F.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

It Never Goes Away

  (Brighton’s No.1 Private Detective #3)

by Tom Trott

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU 

From No.1 Private Detective to No.1 Suspect

A cryptic message from an old friend leads Joe Grabarz to an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of the South Downs. But Joe is too late, someone else has got there first: his friend is dead, and all the evidence points to him.

Ten years ago the farmhouse was the scene of three infamous murders when a young boy killed his mother, father, and little sister. Now an adult, he was released from prison with a new identity. Could he be involved? The farmhouse also sits on valuable land, fought over in a struggle between building houses and drilling for shale gas. But could it really be worth killing for? Whatever is going on, Joe knows one thing for sure: his friend’s murder is just a tiny part of it.

To bring the killer to justice Joe must dig up the past, and reckon with his own, because no matter how hard you work, it never goes away.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

He had a strong nose with a bridge that could support haulage, a jaw that could grind stones, and a face that rested in a scowl.

He didn’t reply for a couple of minutes, going over the story in his head, different wrinkles twitching as though his face was being prickled with electricity.

That look could boil an egg.

We’re not all carnivores… not all the time. It’s the lifecycle of a lawyer, Mr Grabarz: you start out with morals, then pretty soon you have to pay your rent so you sell them, then before you know it you’ve got a Mercedes on the drive and you desperately try to buy them back.

She had a mass of curly red hair that spilled out in all directions, and wore a purple one of those fashionable but comfy Scandinavian jumpers under a blue Anorak. In the middle of it all sat the sort of face that instantly inspires friendly feelings. They should make her as a cuddly doll for children who can’t sleep.

My Review:

It Never Goes Away picked up three years after the end of the last book and Joe had been quite prosperous in between as he was enjoying a nicer apartment, better wardrobe with Italian leather shoes, a nice new office with associates, and was driving a Jag. He feared he had gotten soft, and too bad for him, this tale was none stop danger and high activity with car chases and crashes and running for his life from violent criminals while also dodging the police. The story has as many twists and turns as a nest of snakes and was as complicated as the highly compelling characters of Joe and his arch nemesis, Max. I will admit to falling into a fuzzy state of confusion more than once, but I’d follow the enigmatic Joe through a blizzard as he is like my mailman – he may occasionally be late but he always delivers.

New additions to my Brit word list include prang – which is British informal for a car crash; and near the knuckle – a risqué joke, typically about sex and likely to offend. Mr. Google was unable to help me with the idiom of a man being “far too wet” but I am assuming it means wimpy. But you know what usually happens when I ass/u/me…

Author Bio 

 Born in Brighton, I went to school in here, worked many jobs here, and have never lived anywhere else. I first started writing at school, where I and a group of friends devised and performed comedy plays for assemblies, much to the amusement of our fellow pupils. The young ones would cheer (and the old ones would groan) as we stepped up onto the stage, the buzz was tangible. It has been with me ever since.

As an adult I have written a short comedy play that was performed at the Theatre Royal Brighton in May 2014 as part of the Brighton Festival; Daye’s Work, a television pilot for the local Brighton channel; and won the Empire Award (thriller category) in the 2015 New York Screenplay Contest. I published my first novel, You Can’t Make Old Friends, in 2016; my second, Choose Your Parents Wisely, in 2017, my third, The Benevolent Dictator, in 2018, and now my fourth, It Never Goes Away, in 2019. When I’m not writing books, I’m writing about writing, books, and film on Medium.

My inspirations as a writer come from a diverse range of storytellers, but I have a particular love for the works of Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Joel & Ethan Coen, Arthur Conan-Doyle, Daphne du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, Bryan Fuller, Ira Levin, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Towne, JRR Tolkien, and many many more books and films beside. If you can’t find me, or I’m not answering my phone, I’m probably at the cinema.

Social Media Links 

 www.twitter.com/tjtrott

www.facebook.com/tomtrottbooks

www.tomtrott.com

Choose Your Parents Wisely

(Brighton’s No.1 Private Detective #2)

by Tom Trott

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU 

One missing girl and the whole city goes crazy.

It’s been three days, and now everyone in Brighton is looking for her. There is an army of police searching, her picture is on every front page, and the public can’t get enough of it. Gangs of good citizens are going door to door, turning their neighbors’ houses upside down, but still, no one can find her.

For Brighton’s No.1 Private Detective, Joe Grabarz, it brings back too many memories of his first case, another missing girl, when he learned too many lessons the hard way. No one was going door to door then. No one cared. But her mum and dad weren’t nearly as photogenic, nor quite so saintly.

It’s a lesson Joe learned long ago that has come back to haunt him: choose your parents wisely.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Despite being only fifty-something she had the coiffured helmet of hair you expect to see on a pensioner. Hairsprayed to the point where it could be removed in one piece and swapped for something different. Except that it couldn’t, of course, because if it could there was no way you would choose that one. I could see why her husband had left her, I couldn’t live with that hair either.

I had broken my oath to stay calm. In fact I had probably broken a record for the fastest broken oath in history. But that was just a practice run. From now on. Again: I will stay calm.

I’ve always known there was something wrong with me. They say the secret ingredient when making a baby is love. I’m what you get when you leave it out.

This was a place where in twilight elves lurked and fairies larked. But right now, rich people were lurking and larking instead.

My Review:

Thomas Trott has provided another compelling and clever read which was a bit dark, twisted, and complicated, while also smartly crafted, quickly paced, and cunningly plotted. Choose Your Parents Wisely involved three mysteries and two timelines. The timelines narrated his first and most recent cases, each with missing children, and were despairingly similar. The third mystery involved his questionable parentage, which I was never quite certain if the background info was accurate or a possible shakedown. The two timelines were not clearly delineated, nor were they always easily differentiated, which was occasionally frustrating but I was up for the challenge as I adore Mr. Trott’s stylized writing, oddly compelling characters, sardonic humor, and the stealthily placed levity he deftly laced among the tense and dangerous situations our tarnished hero, Joe Grabarz, found himself in. I am enamored with Joe; he appears to be a tried and true smart ass, yet he has a soft heart. Joe would quickly agree to my first observation but would hotly deny the later. I adored his witty banter and snarky quips; even his meaningless conversations often appeared to be amusingly combative. Lucky me, I have one more grand adventure ahead with the enigmatic shamus as I have the newest installment, It Never Goes Away, patiently idling on my new Kindle.

Author Bio 

 Born in Brighton, I went to school in here, worked many jobs here, and have never lived anywhere else. I first started writing at school, where I and a group of friends devised and performed comedy plays for assemblies, much to the amusement of our fellow pupils. The young ones would cheer (and the old ones would groan) as we stepped up onto the stage, the buzz was tangible. It has been with me ever since.

As an adult I have written a short comedy play that was performed at the Theatre Royal Brighton in May 2014 as part of the Brighton Festival; Daye’s Work, a television pilot for the local Brighton channel; and won the Empire Award (thriller category) in the 2015 New York Screenplay Contest. I published my first novel, You Can’t Make Old Friends, in 2016; my second, Choose Your Parents Wisely, in 2017, my third, The Benevolent Dictator, in 2018, and now my fourth, It Never Goes Away, in 2019. When I’m not writing books, I’m writing about writing, books, and film on Medium.

My inspirations as a writer come from a diverse range of storytellers, but I have a particular love for the works of Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Joel & Ethan Coen, Arthur Conan-Doyle, Daphne du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, Bryan Fuller, Ira Levin, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Towne, JRR Tolkien, and many many more books and films beside. If you can’t find me, or I’m not answering my phone, I’m probably at the cinema.

Social Media Links 

 www.twitter.com/tjtrott

www.facebook.com/tomtrottbooks

www.tomtrott.com

You Can’t Make Old Friends

(Brighton’s No.1 Private Detective #1)

by Tom Trott

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU 

Blacklisted by the police. Being sued by a client. And broke. Things can’t get any worse for Brighton’s No.1 Private Detective, Joe Grabarz.

That’s when his best friend’s body washes up on the beach.

Could it really have been ten years? What happened? How could his life have ended like this? He needs answers.

But with the city in the grips of organized crime, and struggling to deal with an influx of legal highs, who cares about just another dead drug dealer?

Joe, that’s who. After all, you can’t make old friends.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

I’ve been on the beach at two a.m. and found it just as packed as during the day. Full of people lighting pointless disposable barbecues and pouring vodka into a watermelon for no good reason.

I must be off my game. Being around her was like putting a magnet next to a compass.

‘I love lawyers.’ I smiled as genuinely as I could pretend, ‘Estate Agents. Politicians. Anyone who makes me feel like I have scruples.’

He was wearing a polo-neck with some kind of symbol over the left breast. What symbol doesn’t matter, just the presence of a logo seems to say “I can afford to buy nice things, unlike you”, although a lot of the time it just says “I have more money than sense.”

I have never felt scruffier than when I walked inside those doors. The way the guy on the reception desk’s eyes bulged when he saw me I might have been a marauding crackhead about to chow-down on his limbs.

You know, most people grow up to regret bullying people. The other people are psychopaths. If I was charitable I’d say he hadn’t grown up yet.

You were as thick as thieves then, and look at you now: still thick and still thieves.

My Review:

I have a new author to fangirl and lucky me, I have two more of his books to read already loaded on my shiny new Kindle. I am totally enamored with the cunningly talented Thomas Trott, his agile writing style was top-shelf entertainment with sly snark, colorfully amusing descriptions, prickling intrigue that continually jabbed at my curiosity, and compelling characters who were tattered and besmirched yet remained endearing with a battered but not beaten vibe. I frequently smirked and occasionally cringed, yet I didn’t want to put this captivating tale down despite the periodic gruesome finds and crime scenes, as the quirkiness of the character’s inner musings and unusual encounters kept beckoning to me. Mr. Trott is surreptitiously sneaky and cleverly slipped in wry humor in the most unexpected places; I bet he is a total caution at parties. And score – I have three new additions to my Brit word list with: half-inch – which is to steal; chav – a subculture of aggressive hooligans who wear designer clothes; and nonic – a conical shaped pint glass used in British pubs.

And now a moment in memoriam of my beloved faithful servant, Redhot. Sob, I am heartbroken to report I had to lay my precious red Kindle to rest (in a tissue lined box and placed in a bottom drawer). My dear Redhot apparently expired from exhaustion and could not be revived despite repeated attempts at defibrillation. Her canary blonde replacement was immediately placed into service and was dubbed as Ms. Bombshell. Bombshell has been primed with Mr. Trott’s next Brighton adventure, Choose Your Parents Wisely.

Author Bio 

 Born in Brighton, I went to school in here, worked many jobs here, and have never lived anywhere else. I first started writing at school, where I and a group of friends devised and performed comedy plays for assemblies, much to the amusement of our fellow pupils. The young ones would cheer (and the old ones would groan) as we stepped up onto the stage, the buzz was tangible. It has been with me ever since.

As an adult I have written a short comedy play that was performed at the Theatre Royal Brighton in May 2014 as part of the Brighton Festival; Daye’s Work, a television pilot for the local Brighton channel; and won the Empire Award (thriller category) in the 2015 New York Screenplay Contest. I published my first novel, You Can’t Make Old Friends, in 2016; my second, Choose Your Parents Wisely, in 2017, my third, The Benevolent Dictator, in 2018, and now my fourth, It Never Goes Away, in 2019. When I’m not writing books, I’m writing about writing, books, and film on Medium.

My inspirations as a writer come from a diverse range of storytellers, but I have a particular love for the works of Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Joel & Ethan Coen, Arthur Conan-Doyle, Daphne du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, Bryan Fuller, Ira Levin, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Towne, JRR Tolkien, and many many more books and films beside. If you can’t find me, or I’m not answering my phone, I’m probably at the cinema.

Social Media Links 

 www.twitter.com/tjtrott

www.facebook.com/tomtrottbooks

www.tomtrott.com

 A Killer’s Alibi

by William L. Myers, Jr.

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU 

Books-A-Million | B & N

Series: Philadelphia Legal

Paperback: 430 pages

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (February 19, 2019)

For attorney Mick McFarland, the evidence is damning. And so are the family secrets in this twisty legal thriller from the Amazon Charts bestselling author of A Criminal Defense.

When crime lord Jimmy Nunzio is caught, knife in hand, over the body of his daughter’s lover and his own archenemy, he turns to Mick McFarland to take up his defense. Usually the courtroom puppeteer, McFarland quickly finds himself at the end of Nunzio’s strings. Struggling to find grounds for a not-guilty verdict on behalf of a well-known killer, Mick is hamstrung by Nunzio’s refusal to tell him what really happened.

On the other side of the law, Mick’s wife, Piper, is working to free Darlene Dowd, a young woman sentenced to life in prison for her abusive father’s violent death. But the jury that convicted Darlene heard only part of the truth, and Piper will do anything to reveal the rest and prove Darlene’s innocence.

As Mick finds himself in the middle of a mob war, Piper delves deeper into Darlene’s past. Both will discover dark secrets that link these fathers and daughters—some that protect, some that destroy, and some that can’t stay hidden forever. No matter the risk.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

If you’re suggesting he agree to be conscripted into witness protection, I just don’t see Jimmy Nunzio letting you move him to Iowa to sell fire insurance.

I don’t need to spend any time thinking about him. He does enough thinking about himself for all of us.

I never met people who could talk so much without saying anything. It felt like they were blowing words into the air to fill up the space between us.

Mick can tell he’s having a good time dragging out the tale. “I feel like a marlin,” Mick says. “You’re pulling me in, letting me out, pulling me in.”

He couldn’t incite the Philadelphia jury any more skillfully than if he flashed pictures of Nunzio urinating on the Rocky statue.

My Review:

A Killer’s Alibi was an active and compelling read with a near constant series of surprising twists and turns before culminating into an ending I never saw coming. It was ingenious, devilishly clever, and tautly written. This was my first exposure to the talented word skills of William L. Myers, Jr. and I was awed by his devious plotting and compelling storytelling.   The complex storylines were maddeningly paced, skillfully crafted, and involved two separate investigations and trials employing the same law firm, each with myriad conundrums and laced with tetchy witnesses who seemed incapable of giving a straight answer.   I devised and cast off a notebook full of theories but would never have arrived at the final conclusion. It was stellar.

About William L. Myers, Jr.

William L. Myers, Jr., is the author of the bestselling Philadelphia Legal series, which includes the #1 Kindle bestseller A Criminal Defense, An Engineered Injustice, and A Killer’s Alibi. A Philadelphia lawyer with thirty years of trial experience in state and federal courts up and down the East Coast, Myers has argued before the United States Supreme Court and still actively practices law. Myers was born into a proud working-class family; graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law; and now lives with his wife, Lisa, in the western suburbs of Philadelphia.

Connect with William

Website | Facebook | Twitter