Review of THE LIES I TOLD by Mary Burton

THE LIES I TOLD by Mary Burton will be published on August 2nd 2022 by Montlake.

 When Marisa Stockton was sixteen, her twin sister, Clare, was murdered and her body was dumped in the James River near Richmond. Fourteen years later, the case remains unsolved. Not long before her thirtieth birthday, Marisa was in a car accident and suffered a head injury. She can no longer remember anything that happened during the ten days prior to the accident. Marisa is convinced that someone drugged her and forced her to crash. She also believes that she learned something crucial about Clare's murder. With her older sister, the original detective, and her friends pushing for her to let it go and move on, Marisa puts herself in Clare's killer's path and pushes forward towards solving the case.

 THE LIES I TOLD is a quick but heavy read. All of the main characters come with their own load of crushing baggage that a therapist could spend their entire career sorting through. Despite there being a lot going on, the plot ebbed and flowed throughout the novel. Some scenes were fast paced and interesting. Other scenes dragged and were boring. The ending left me overall unsatisfied. Yes, there was a conclusion to the case. But there were so many other things going on that were left unresolved.

 The view point jumps back and forth in time. It also moves between multiple characters—with Marisa being the most predominate. There were a few scenes written from the killer's perspective. Considering I had the killer pegged from the beginning, it would have been more enjoyable to just know who it was so that more of his motives could be revealed. I will say that it was fascinating to get into everyone's heads and learn about the secrets they've been keeping—but I felt like Burton only scratched the surface with some of their  motives. The novel could have been mush more of a psychological thriller if Burton had delved deeper into the main characters' heads and explained why they did what they did and continued to do so.

 Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.