Psychological thrillers have made a huge boom recently. They’re definitely one of my favorite genres because I often find them easy to read and entertaining. Lie Like the Devil is a psychological thriller that reminds me very much of the movie Se7en due to its religious overtones. I love Se7en, so I was very interested in this book when the author reached out to me requesting a review. Continue reading to hear my thoughts.
Lie Like the Devil follows Martina and Neil, a detective duo investigating a string of grisly murders inspired by the culprit’s Puritan beliefs. The victims are found with the back skin flayed and attached to their arms in a wing formation, leading the killer to be coined the “Wingmaker”. As the culprit continues to strike, the detectives race to connect the clues and find the killer before it is too late.
What I Liked
The plot of this book was very compelling. I found myself wanting to continue reading, eager to find out who the culprit was. Isn’t that feeling pretty common when reading a psychological thriller? I think this book had a lot of potential. It was exactly the kind of book I normally would enjoy. Serial killers inspired by religion are not new, but this was my first time reading a story where the killer was inspired specifically by the Geneva bible, so that fresh concept was interesting to me.
What I Didn't Like
While the concept of this book was interesting and had potential, there were a few issues that kept this book from hitting the bullseye.
The Characters
The characters were a bit flat. We didn’t really learn much about Neil, and I didn’t really feel any connection to him, which made a scene later in the book not have much effect on me. Also, his jokes were annoying, and his insistence on saying that the killer could be a woman was too ham-fisted. I think he was supposed to be comedic relief, but he just came off as unprofessional.
The characterization of Marti also didn’t make sense at some points. She is introduced as someone who is not fazed by a brutal crime scene, but then she finds herself getting aroused by a suspect just because he is hot. She is also completely unprofessional in the interrogations. It was hard for me to root for her when she was all over the place, a stone-faced hard-ass detective one minute, and a flushing unprofessional detective the next. I felt like she couldn’t get it together.
There were characters introduced once who were never heard from again, such as Marti’s boyfriend. He calls her and insults her, and then is never mentioned again. He didn’t add anything to the plot, except to further confirm that Marti is a workaholic who can’t commit time to relationships. However, the boyfriend did not need to call her and call her a c-nt to get the point across. We already knew she was a workaholic due to her reminiscing on a past relationship that ended due to her work schedule. There was also a local cult leader who was originally a suspect that was never mentioned or seen again after his interrogation. He was simply a plot device to move the story forward.
The Pacing and Plot
There wasn’t enough exposition at the beginning of the book, in my opinion. We were thrown right into the case, and so we didn’t get any backstory on the characters. It felt like this was the second book in a series where we were meant to learn all about the characters in the first book.
I feel like an important part of a psychological thriller is the build-up before the first big event. In this book, there was virtually no build-up to the first murder. Additionally, there continued to be flashbacks to Colonial America that interrupted the flow of the book. I understand that it was supposed to provide examples of the different ways people were executed back then, but the flashbacks weren’t super necessary and were detrimental to the pacing.
Finally, there were plot holes. One glaring one is that near the end of the book, Marti ends up drugged by the culprit. However, it is never explained how she was drugged. It was not really explained how she was feasibly drugged.
Final Thoughts
Have you read the book? What did you think about it? Let me know in the comments below!
