Little Black Lies

If you hang around book blog sites frequently, you may have come across mention of Sharon Bolton's Little Black Lies once or twice. Or maybe a lot. I know I have. After hearing nothing but good things about all of Bolton's books, I thought Little Black Lies might be a good place to start, given it's a stand alone novel. Now I know what all the fuss is about--and I have to agree.

Little Black Lies is everything I love in a crime fiction novel. It is intense and thought provoking with fully fleshed out characters, a complex plot, and a setting that itself could be its own character. The story is told from three different perspectives, that of Catrin, a grieving mother who has nothing left to live for; Callum, a former soldier suffering show more from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder who will do anything for the woman he loves; and Rachel, a woman being eaten by guilt and depression. Each of the characters have connected and complicated histories.

With the disappearance of three children from the Falkland Islands, the most recent from a tourist family, suspicions and fears are running high among the locals and those from out of town. Sharon Bolton captures the essence of both the individual panic and that of group think, which in and of itself can lead to terrible repercussions.

There is so much to this novel. I felt transported to the islands as I read the novel, caught up in the beauty and cruelty of the land and sea, the history of the people, and wrapped up in the individual stories of the characters. Catrin is a difficult character to get to know at first; she is distant and may seem a bit uncaring--but the more I learned about her, the more I came to care about her. She has suffered so much; my heart ached for her. I liked Callum quite a bit from the start. The more I learned of his story, the more I liked him. He hasn't had an easy time of it either, suffering from his own demons. Rachel was the hardest for me to warm to, I confess. I am not sure I ever completely did. There was a part of me that could identify with some of what she was going through. Perhaps some of that was in the way Bolton told the story; perhaps that was the intent. Or perhaps it was just me and which characters I found it easiest to identify with.

I hesitate to go into too much detail about the plot and the character's lives. I think my not knowing is part of what made this book even more powerful than it might have been otherwise. Although, I think I still would have loved it. It touches on several issues I hate to read in books. I admit there is one scene that had me so disturbed I had to set the book aside for awhile. I still couldn't stop thinking about that scene. I found it so heartbreaking, even if necessary.

Little Black Lies is so full of twists and turns--and all so well done! This was a near impossible book to put down. Sharon Bolton knows how to build up the suspense and keep the reader guessing. I loved the ending and how everything played out.

I have no doubt I will be reading more by Sharon Bolton in the near future. If all her books are like this, she is sure to be a new favorite.

To learn more about Sharon Bolton and her books, please visit the author's website and Goodreads.

Source: I received this book for an honest review from the publisher via NetGalley. show less

On November 3, 1991, Catrin Quinn's two little boys died in a terrible accident. They were in the car of her best friend, Rachel, who left them alone right before the car slid down a cliff. Naturally, Catrin’s life fell apart. She and her husband Ben divorced shortly afterwards, and she hasn’t spoken to Rachel since the accident. Just before the third anniversary of her sons' deaths, Catrin has made a decision. “I believe just about anyone can kill in the right circumstances, given enough motivation,” she says to herself. “The question is, am I there yet?”

The plot of Little Black Lies spans five days and involves multiple mysteries. The story is told from the first person point of view of three characters, Catrin, Callum and show more Rachel. Rather than flitting between the characters in brief chapters, the author splits the novel into three separate parts. I thought this was extremely effective. The longer sections enable the reader to really become involved in the thoughts and feelings of each character, and understand their struggles and conflicts. The three characters have various things in common: they all have secrets which they are keeping from each other; they are all suffering, albeit in different ways; they are all telling little black lies. Startling confessions emerge which stir up the story and which keep things fresh for the reader.

Bolton draws us to the isolated Falkland Islands in 1994, just over ten years after the War where this distant archipelago still exists as one of the “last remaining scraps of the British Empire.” The story occurs in a short period, from “day 1” to “day 6,” as the inhabitants of the island hunt for a lost boy, the third in three years, yet in denial that someone among them could actually be doing this. The story is timeless, original, and provides a little history lesson on the Falkland Islands. Sharon Bolton has written a terrific thriller that will hold you enthralled until the last page. I highly recommend Little Black Lies. It is powerful and disturbing, everything a good psychological thriller needs to be. I am giving this 5 stars because I just couldn't put it down and had to make myself slow down while reading it, so I didn't miss anything. show less

Little Black Lies is a taut, twisty thriller from Sharon Bolton. It begins when a child goes missing, the third in three years from the sparsely populated Falkland Islands.

The narrative is divided into thirds, unfolding from the perspectives of three unique and complex characters. For Catrin the disappearance is an inconvenience. She has a schedule to keep, plans for the woman she blames for the tragic death of her young sons as an anniversary approaches. Callum, an ex-soldier with PTSD, has a theory about the abducted children that the local police are choosing to ignore. Rachel, who spends most of her days in bed, is largely oblivious until her youngest son goes missing.

The well crafted plot, which I don’t wish to elaborate on, show more reveals the links between these characters, whose lives have been tainted by grief and tragedy, and their connection to the missing children over a period of five days. Though the pace is measured, the story is propelled by cinching tension and breath taking twists.

The setting is atmospheric, the isolated island itself has great presence in the novel from its rugged coastline to its rocky terrain, and its history, as the site of the bloody if short lived war for sovereignty between Britain and Argentina in the early 1980’s, also plays into the story.

Fans of poetry should enjoy the references throughout the novel to ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Bolton skilfully utilises the imagery the verses evoke.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

Little Black Lies is a tense, dark and disturbing story about revenge and redemption, that leads to a stunning conclusion. I could hardly put it down. show less

I received an ARC copy of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is my fourth book by Bolton and I can safely say that I am a fan. Not a cozy writer by any means, her stories are dark and gothic in tone. I also love mysteries (or any novel, really) set in isolated locations. Being cut off from the rest of the world ratchets up the tension for me. As you can see, at this point I am already pre-disposed to like this story. Add to it a foreign location with a strong historical background and I really can’t ask for anything more. Immediately download, load up on the Kindle, and start reading---which is what I did. Oh, also plan for lack of sleep because these types of stories demand your show more attention.

Little Black Lies is a dark story about child abduction and murder in the Falklands. The isolation and lack of infrastructure and high tech crime techniques make this a fertile ground for a serial killer. Not only do they not have dedicated forensic criminologists and lab facilities, some residents still rely on horses to get around. In this setting the killer holds most of the cards, leaving the police and residents chasing their tails in bewildered ineffectiveness. Children are missing and time is short to protect them from their abductor or even the elements in this often harsh environment. Emotions run high and mob mentality rules.

Utilizing a narrative framework that has become popular recently we have overlapping first person accounts of three central characters and it works quite well her, as it did in The Girl on the Train or Gone Girl. Not easy to pull off, but in the hands of a skilled writer, the tension can be palpable. Bolton utilizes this technique to meticulously set the stage for a whirlwind final act that twists and turns like a snake on a hot highway, leaving the reader racing (and guessing) all the way to the devastating finale.

Loved it. 5 stars.
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Sharon Bolton seems to revel in depicting small, often isolated communities in which ordinary people hide dark secrets. She has previously written compellingly cloying tales of suspense set in several worrisome English villages as well as one set in the Shetland isles. In LITTLE BLACK LIES she takes us to Stanley on the Falkland Islands, nearly 500km east of the closest land mass. It is the mid-90’s – a decade or so after the war – and several children have gone missing in recent years. Locals seem to have accepted that the disappearances are unrelated and accidental but readers are forced to confront the notion something more sinister is going on.

The story is told as a kind of three act relay. First we meet Catrin Quinn: show more conservation worker and grief-stricken mother. Three years ago her two young sons died in a horrifying accident that resulted from her best friend’s temporary inattentiveness. The subsequent trauma undoubtedly played a huge role in her losing the baby she was carrying at the time. These days Catrin is barely functioning and, far from drawing closer to forgiveness with passing time, revenge is occupying her thoughts. At a key moment, plot-wise, Catrin hands the storytelling baton to Callum Murray an ex-soldier who fought in the Falklands War and is still suffering as a result of the things he did and saw then. For the final act Callum makes way for Rachel, Catrin’s former best friend who is searching for a redemption that may never come, no matter what she is prepared to give up to achieve it.

If you’re looking for a procedural story about missing children you need to go elsewhere because this is book isn’t really about missing children at all (and yes for fans of Wittertainment I do mean this in the same way that Jaws isn’t really about sharks). It’s about the three central characters – ordinary people all of them – coping – or not – with the awful things that happen to and around them. These are not bad people doing bad things, or even – really – good people doing bad things. These are good people to whom bad shit has happened. Although each person appears in all sections of the book it is through their respective first-hand accounts of events past and present that we learn most about what makes each one tick. This kind of storytelling can be a bit of a train wreck (I’m thinking of this book for example) but Bolton has done a superb job of showing how the same events can look so very different depending on whose perspective things are seen from and tempting readers’ sympathies to pass from one character to the next as each one takes on the central role.

That’s not to say there isn’t a ripper of a story going on here as well. It’s a nail biter on more than one occasion with all the twists and turns that are the inevitable result of no one having a complete picture. And – as always – Bolton’s setting is wonderfully depicted. The remoteness of the islands, the slow recovery from the war and the way that small populations behave are all brought to life very vividly. Several reviews I’ve read were displeased with one particularly gruesome, and in some ways tangential scene, but I thought it was well placed as it helped show how life is in such places. Even in the days before mass bullying by social media became the norm it was easy for people to become outraged about things they know little about and Bolton demonstrates this very well here.

I listened to the audio version of this book which had three terrific narrators who really helped deliver the sense that the storytelling was passing from one person to the next. I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes the format. In fact my only criticism of the book would have been that I was felling disappointed by the way the ending was heading – it was just a bit too happy – but then there was a final dark twist I had failed to predict so even on that front the book delivers. Great stuff. show less

This book is set on the Falkland Islands in 1994, 12 years after the end of the conflict. Catrin's best friend, Rachel, was responsible for the deaths of Catrin's two sons in a tragic accident. Despite living in a small community they somehow manage to avoid each other but Catrin is unable to forgive Rachel for her carelessness and now her mind is turning towards revenge. Callum is a Scottish ex-soldier who has settled on the islands but who has flashbacks to terrible events during the conflict. Add in a series of missing children and you have a very interesting storyline that isn't just about Catrin's pain.

The book is split into three segments, told from the points of view of Catrin, Callum and Rachel. I really enjoyed the book and show more found it to be a real page-turner. It wasn't quite what I was expecting as the story unfolded in ways I couldn't have imagined. Each story focuses on the same few days but from the different perspectives which is a clever plot development device. I felt Catrin's pain for the loss of her children and how empty she felt inside, sympathised with how guilty Rachel must have felt and wondered how a soldier such as Callum copes with the distressing memories that he has. The quality of Bolton's writing is excellent and I definitely want to read more of her work. I particularly liked the small island backdrop - in a way the islands are just as much a character as anybody else. Great read. show less

Bolton is very good at getting you to take your eyes off the bigger picture to focus on details. For some thrillers, this is the key to its solution; not for hers though. This book reminded me a lot of the way Peter May put his Lewis Island books together - heavy on characters, atmosphere and secrets. It is a tad repetitive in places and has a tangle of histrionics at the end (some of which are a real stretch to believe), but the reveal is a good one. There is happiness and hope, but also a future of misery and dread that’s a little hard to take in properly.

We start with Catrin who has absorbed more pain than she can handle when her best friend caused the death of her two sons. She is mentally unbalanced. No doubt about that. Now show more she’s plotting a way out for herself, but not before exacting revenge. She admits she’s actually good at killing and that’s the part I had to skip/skim - the beached whales. The euthanasia. The suffering. Even though the spirit is very different, the parallels to her grandfather’s whaling exploits are stark. So how far will Catrin take this ‘talent’ of hers? How far has she already taken it?

By the time Callum takes up the narration I was pretty leery of Catrin, her motives and her intentions and his side of the story makes it worse. He’s a veteran of the Falklands Islands war in the 1980s. When he first returned there his PTSD symptoms almost went away, but now they’re back. He blacks out, has fugue states and sometimes lashes out in violence. This isn’t all he is though. He’s a tech pioneer (this is set in the mid 1990s) and a popular person in town. He is the one to pull Catrin’s boys from the car in the sea. When he and Catrin find not one, but two of the missing boys, my suspicion meter went crazy.

Last there is Rachel; island child killer who will never, never be free of guilt, shame or the anger from the community for her deadly lapse. She would gladly trade one of her boys to have one of Catrin’s back. She says that yes, the pain would be horrible, but bearable and preferable to the living hell she’s made of everyone’s life. Her husband has stood by her, but she doesn’t love him; never has. Her heart belongs to another. And there’s more mental illness on display - she has imaginary conversations with her horse. Yup. Her horse. Also it seems she can’t stand to be alone with her youngest son.

I didn’t get a good enough sense of the friendship between Catrin and Rachel and wish there had been more about that. Not necessarily childhood stuff, but certainly adult interactions and closeness. There was more meat on the bones of the Catrin/Callum relationship and so I know the other could have been filled out, too. The sense of community in the Falklands is there and it works the way you’d think it would; people are fiercely protective of each other, but also blind to some faults. When they get an irrational idea about who might be might be a child abductor/killer in their midst though, they go crazy like any other small village that is isolated from the larger world. It’s comforting and scary. The ending is a mix of dread and happiness depending on what island you’re on.

One by one they all confess to killing Rachel’s boy Peter. The cops, who aren’t that sophisticated in the ways of murder investigation, lose the rag and things get crazy. Plus there are villagers with pitchforks and torches. In a rush to escape, cops and suspects end up together and are able to sort out who did what and why. The dust settles. Peter is found; alive and well.

Then there’s the solution to each boys’ situation. Jimmy is ruled an accident, although there is no certainty. Archie is found to have been inadvertently taken out of his little sphere when during a game of hide and seek he hid in the wrong car. Peter’s brothers hid him in fear of what their mother would do when she found out he took a tumble down some cliffs trying to follow his older brothers. So it seems there is no child killer after all.

But then someone witnesses another boy being taken. It’s Ben. And Rachel lets him do it. It’s crazy and oddly fitting. show less