Tell No Lies

Tell No Lies by Allison Brennan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Thank you to the publisher, Mira Books, for providing me with an ARC of Tell No Lies in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Gist

I love murder mysteries. I mean, give me murder, intrigue, shifty characters, atmosphere and a good setting and I’m all yours. It relaxes me; I feel comforted. It’s weird, I know, but murder mystery stories are incredibly soothing for me.

When I read the synopsis of Tell No Lies I thought that this could be a great way to forget about certain very stressful points in life right now. I was excited to start it and thought I could just sink my teeth into it and forget about the world.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite pan out that way. Let me explain.

The Details

A murder mystery set against the Arizona mountain range with a possible conspiracy at its roots. Sounds pretty good, right?

It all started quite innocently. First there was the prologue, then came the first chapter and the second and third. It wasn’t until chapter number five that the protagonist finally made an appearance.

By then I was thoroughly confused by the many characters this story has already introduced. And it wasn’t as if those were character that had been established in the first book of this new series. No! These were brand spanking new characters.

Reading Tell No Lies started to feel like work, trying to keep all those characters apart. At one point I was considering just dismissing certain characters, so that I don’t have to worry about remembering them. That’s not a good sign.

On top of that, we have very descriptive chapters. Everything is described in detail. There is a lot of tell and not really any show in this story. There were so many details that I lost track of what is being described. It was just a little much and took away from the reading pleasure.

The murder mystery itself got lost, at least for me, in the financial forensics. It went into a lot of detail about umbrella corporations. Wait, that’s “Resident Evil”. I think they are called shell companies…corporations. I’m lost again.

At one point I felt more compelled to double check that my finances are in order than to read Tell No Lies.

The Verdict

Overall, if you are more of a forensics-pathology/detectives-chasing-one-bad-guy-using-fingerprints type of reader, then this might not be for you.

It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. I would suggest it for a specific audience.

About the Author

Allison Brennan is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of over thirty novels. She has been nominated for Best Paperback Original Thriller by International Thriller Writers and the Daphne du Maurier Award. A former consultant in the California State Legislature, Allison lives in Arizona with her husband, five kids and assorted pets.