PENGUIN Liar Liar: DI Helen Grace 4

I have found this whole series very enjoyable. The main character, a British detective named Helen Grace, is an investigator of serial murders. Liar Liar is very satisfying in the series. I found the books to be written from a very unique perspective, jumping back and forth from one characters view point to another. The books are very quick reads with short chapters and “hooks” on every page. And all the characters are very human with their individual flaws; some have more than others. I would thoroughly recommend this author and the Helen Grace series.

Really enjoy these books by Arlidge, Detective inspector Helen Grace is a cool character!

enthralling and unputdownable

Im 4.Band der Helen Grace Serie wird einen Serienbrandstifter gesucht. Auch dieses Buch ist wieder sehr spannend geschrieben und mitreißend.

Another great story featuring DI Helen Grace from M J Arlidge. The stakes are even higher in this book, the dangers doubled and the chances of being a victim appear to be very high as the attacks appear to be random with no connections, but people are dying and so many others are injured or placed at a very high risk. It makes a pleasant change that for once, Helen has a supportive boss, even if his interest makes her uncomfortable and suspicious. The eminently slappable reporter from the local Press, Emilia Garanita, is still on the scene. It would appear that she and Helen have come to an accommodation, but can the press ever be trusted? She is soon back to creating huge problems for Helen, in this instance creating suspicion and distrust between the differing branches of investigators. Helen is on top of her game however and is quickly running an investigation with many strands. Like most fictional detectives however, she seems to make a habit of focusing on one person and not seeing the bigger picture. In this case she has a serial list of potential suspects to concentrate on. There are a few surprises to deal with before the reader sees the truth of the matter, and that is a major surprise in itself, although we are subtly reminded that there were clues if only we were sufficiently alert for them. This book, in common with the previous books in the series, reflects well the hierachy of investigatory teams and the realities of thejob. There is a senior officer overseeing the whole thing, but allowing the DI to get on with the job; we see her managing and delegating her team, and really trusting them to do their jobs effectively, we see her considering and planning and we also see other experience officers making connections and following them through until they have either disproved them or found more evidence. We also see one officer who is injured by a suspect who is trying to kill her being thoroughly shaken by it and really considering her position, instead of being depicted as Superwoman, unrealistically shaking off the incident and being back at work, unperturbed, the next morning. Congratulations to the author for resisting that scenario and making the whole framework of the story much more credible. I was also glad to see that, having had a very bad experience, Helen is beginning to discover that she doesn't need her accustomed but unusual stress relief activity. When I first came across this in the first book in the series I was a little worried as this could have become a caricature situation but the author has managed to avoid this, although if Helen does continue with it, there is still scope for it to become too much of a dominant feature of the book (sorry!) For all these reasons plus a good, well paced storyline, this is a book which is well worth getting into, and is absorbing and attention grabbing.