the perfect lie book review Jo Spain

TW: suicide

He jumped to his death in front of witnesses. Now his wife is charged with murder.

Five years ago, Erin Kennedy moved to New York following a family tragedy. She now lives happily with her detective husband in the scenic seaside town of Newport, Long Island. When Erin answers the door to Danny’s police colleagues one morning, it’s the start of an ordinary day. But behind her, Danny walks to the window of their fourth-floor apartment and jumps to his death.

Eighteen months later, Erin is in court, charged with her husband’s murder. Over that year and a half, Erin has learned things about Danny she could never have imagined. She thought he was perfect. She thought their life was perfect.

But it was all built on the perfect lie.

Published by Hachette and available from Booktopia and all good bookstores

Duffy’s thoughts on The Perfect Lie

This is easily one of the strongest opening chapters of a domestic thriller I have ever read. Utterly gripping, and I was hooked. As the plot revealed itself with plenty of clues and twists along the way, I really expected to be posting the review for The Perfect Lie as one of Duffy’s favourite reads. However, once I hit the halfway mark, the storyline hit a steep incline, and the fast pace turned into a heavy breathing struggle uphill.

I found myself skipping pages, partly due to the triggering nature of suicide themes, but mainly because I got a little, well, bored. This was a real shame because when the big finale twist came, I wasn’t invested enough to be surprised.

Jo Spain is a great writer, and the premise and twists of The Perfect Lie had all the ingredients of a 5-star read; maybe some tighter editing and killing 50 pages would have made this the tight knock-out domestic thriller it deserved to be.

Check out Duffy’s other domestic thriller reads!