To Tell You the Truth: A twisty thriller that’s impossible to put down

Well, I really thought I knew where this one was heading; was I right? Not a hope . . . Thirty years ago, Lucy and her brother left their beds and went to the nearby woods but only Lucy came back. Her brother has never been seen again. Now, Lucy is a best-selling author with a support system provided by her husband to allow her to create her best-selling thrillers which are very popular. Then Dan upsets the equilibrium by forcing Lucy into life changes that she hadn't planned on and suddenly the past looms large . . . With superb timing (aka sheer luck) I read this book during the summer solstice which was exactly when the original case occurred, and I think it made the whole story just that little bit creepier! Lucy had trouble deciding who she could trust - and so did I. Every time I thought I had a handle on things, there was a turn of events which had me casting suspicion in entirely the wrong direction and I somehow managed to continue in this vein the whole way through! It's fair to say that I had absolutely no idea where it was heading and was wrong-footed so often that I began to doubt my own sanity, never mind that of the characters. This is an amazingly well-crafted novel by an author whose name on the cover was enough to attract me, and I was thrilled with the unpredictability of the story . My powers of perception have had a thorough work-out and, I fear, been left wanting. A stunningly good read - exciting, enigmatic and completely unfathomable for the most part - resulting in an altogether satisfying and rewarding read. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a sparkling 5* novel, worthy of my highest recommendation.

To Tell You The Truth is the fourth stand-alone novel by British author, Gilly Macmillan. Best-selling author of the DS Eliza Grey books, Lucy Harper has just completed the fifth book in this very popular series. Surely a cause for celebration? But Lucy is a little nervous. Her agent will soon discover that Lucy has taken a brave step with the latest book, and he might not be too pleased. “…how naïve I had been when I first got published. How I hadn’t realised what a treadmill I was stepping on to. How the sheer pace of it, and the exhaustion, eroded your confidence and then chipped away at your sanity, how it made you vulnerable because the books crowded every corner of your brain, every minute of every day, until your main character stepped off the page and compromised your real life, which made you feel crazy.” Eliza has been with Lucy all her life, playing, sharing, advising, telling her what to do and say. Eliza is Lucy’s alone: no one else can see or hear her. She was with Lucy that night of the Summer Solstice when her little brother Teddy disappeared. And then Eliza became her muse, her star character. But by the third book, she became more real to Lucy, maybe a little too real. In this fifth book, Eliza had been incapacitated, much to her indignation and anger. While Lucy has been wholly absorbed in creating the source of their future income, her husband, Dan has been doing some anticipatory spending, but Lucy truly wonders, when the purchase is revealed, how he could ever have imagined it could meet with her approval. As for his newest literary project, it’s not until much later that Lucy discovers just what he has been up to. Macmillan’s sixth novel is brilliantly plotted: red herrings, twists and surprises keep the reader guessing as the story races to a nail-biting climax. The present-day story is interspersed with a second-person narrative relating the events of the summer of 1991 when three-year-old Teddy Bewley vanished, never to be seen again. The story is so cleverly constructed that the reader will be asking themselves: Is Lucy an unreliable narrator, or is her apparent paranoia well-founded? Is she a consummate liar or just an inventive story teller? Is she a murderer, or is she a victim? As always, this author has a way with words: “The familiarity felt disorientating, like seeing a face you think you recognise before realising it’s your own. Aged, subtly changed, but bearing traces of everything you ever lived through, even the things you want to forget.” Once again, Macmillan does not disappoint. This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Random House UK.