#BookReview ‘A Game Of Lies’ by Clare Mackintosh

About the book…

They say the camera never lies.
But on this show, you can’t trust anything you see.

Stranded in the Welsh mountains, seven reality show contestants have no idea what they’ve signed up for.

Each of these strangers has a secret. If another player can guess the truth, they won’t just be eliminated – they’ll be exposed live on air. The stakes are higher than they’d ever imagined, and they’re trapped.

The disappearance of a contestant wasn’t supposed to be part of the drama. Detective Ffion Morgan has to put aside what she’s watched on screen, and find out who these people really are – knowing she can’t trust any of them.

And when a murderer strikes, Ffion knows every one of her suspects has an alibi . . . and a secret worth killing for.

Thank you so, so much Laura Sherlock for my gifted copy of ‘A Game Of Lies’ which is published by Sphere Books on July 20th!

I cannot believe I have not read the first Ffion Morgan thriller, ‘The Last Party’, an oversight which I will be correcting ASAP.

What I loved about this book is that it deals with many complex issues without ever feeling like an issue laden novel.

Reality tv and the impact after the cameras turn off, is a huge concern as it seems quite the trend to raise people up and destroy them-from the little I have been reading, I am not altogether a big fan of these types of shows like Love Island and such.

But I get the pull, the almost gladiatorial aspect of seeing real people forced to live together in difficult terrains, facing their fears and growing stronger as a result, but there is also the other side, where it’s almost a blood lust to see the destruction of celebrities or common or garden folk, to expose secrets, bring the kiss and tell stories out of the wood work. It’s the modern equivalent of the stocks, or a freak show, and I am not a fan.

This is the perspective which Ffion comes from, her daughter’s boyfriend is working on a programme called ‘Exposure’, which is turning the spotlight on the small Welsh village that they live in.

Reeling from the events of her first lead investigation-tantalisingly hinted at- Ffion is very much against the programme bringing an influx of unwanted attention to their town, especially as one of their own is one of the contestants.

She is our ‘in’ to this show, watching it with her family and feeling just the same almost sense of repulsion in her inability to turn away , as most of us , I imagine, would. Except there is a twist-‘Exposure’ is more than just surviving in the rough, each contestant has a secret, and a secret fear. They can nominate each other to spend time in the ‘confessional’ and if they guess someone else’s secret correctly, then that person is out. So you have a situation which no one was prepared for, audience or contestant alike. And some secrets were worth killing for….

The ruthless brain behind it has no compunction about the rigours he is placing these very real people under, and when Ffion is brought in to look for a missing contestant who technically should not have been able to escape, she not only has a missing person to account for in rough terrain, she ends up with a potential murder suspect when violence erupts in the camp.

The twists and turns keep coming thick and fast, I found myself as invested in the relationship between Fffion and her family, as well as Ffion and her colleague, Leo, who she has a ‘will they /won’t they’ rapport with whilst trying to decode the murderer from the list of suspects. It’s really tricky because you had such a hard time caring why this particular person was killed as they were truly a crap person, for multiple reasons. And this shows Ffion at her best, as an instinctive, if not always authorised, detective, who gets herself into trouble as she tracks down the killer using not always by the book means.

She is rough and ready, her very own particular brand of cop and I absolutely adored the Welsh phrases and dialect in it, and as Welsh reader who is constantly fed up of the papers touting ‘look at the little Welsh hideaway that no one knows about’ -just no! stop sharing the previously secluded beaches and woods because suddenly they aren’t!-I totally ‘got’ why she was not a fan of having her village overrun by media crews and intense speculation.  The thing which makes this place quiet is the thing at risk from outside forces and yet, there is a sense of Ffion feeling that she is settling in a place and a role because it is, in effect, an easier option than stepping outside these self imposed boundaries.

She, her mum and daughter are complex and very real characters, I loved the banter between them and her naughty dog Dave who is a bane of their lives. I loved the relationships in the police station, they way they felt so natural and engaged as a force, and whilst this mystery unfolds, the real repercussions of these secrets need to read to be believed. Sometimes the worry about exposing the deepest mistakes of your life are so much worse than the reality, and from a realistic tv show -which I could totally see happening-to the morals of exactly why we engage in such programmes, all of these topics are dealt with in a way that felt thoroughly responsible and left room for the reader to make up your own mind.

It wasn’t expositional, it wasn’t moralising, rather, ‘A Game Of Lies’ presents a fully rounded and satisfying mystery whilst leaving your jaw dropping at the conclusion. I was left with whiplash at just a few sentences that made the rest of the book flip the entire narrative of a certain character and left with no idea where this was going, but 100% certain I will be champing at the bit for Ffion Morgan #3.

About the author…

Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of New York Times bestseller ‘I Let You Go’, and Sunday Times bestsellers ‘I See You’, ‘Let Me Lie’,and ‘After The End’. Translated into forty languages, her books have sold more than two million copies worldwide, and have spent a combined total of 50 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller chart.

Her new thriller, ‘Hostage’, came out in June 2021.

Clare is the patron of the Silver Star Society, an Oxford-based charity which supports the work carried out in the John Radcliffe Hospital’s Silver Star unit, providing special care for mothers with medical complications during pregnancy. Clare lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children

Twitter @claremackint0sh @BooksSphere

Links-http://www.claremackintosh.com/