The Good Liar was Searle's debut back in 2016. He took a tremendous risk, starting his novel with a deeply mundane online date between two pensioners of eighty or so. A thriller writer risks losing a lot of genre fans right there. I stuck with it, thankfully, and can report there is nothing mundane about The Good Liar. The twists keep coming and you genuinely cannot put the book down. Searle increases the complexity with seemingly random flashbacks, mainly for Roy Courtnay, our devious octogenarian. You think you have got a step ahead of the story - only to find that Searle confirms your suspicions on the next page - you've been expertly led to your deduction. I began to wonder if Searle was being slightly less thorough with Betty, Roy's target and antagonist, but oh no, that's another twist.
My only criticism is that, as so often happens with contemporary novels, The Good Liar is two short chapters too long. It's the last two chapters, so no real damage done. I just thought they were misjudgments.
I read one of Searle's other, more recent novels, A Fatal Game, earlier this year [see review below] and was hugely impressed. Must track down the other, A Traitor in the Family.
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