By: Valerie Keogh ISBN: 9781785134715
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Publication Date: 09/13/2023
Format: e-book
My Rating: 4 Stars (ARC)
A psychological thriller from best-selling author Valerie Keogh you won't want to miss!!
What if someone from your past tried to destroy your future?
When Melanie Scott is promoted to junior partner, she thinks she has put her past behind her and while out celebrating her promotion, she meets the handsome and charming Hugo Field.
Melanie has her doubts and is haunted by her mother’s critical voice, which reminds her that she’s messed up before. But when Hugo invites her for dinner, she buries her feeling and accepts his invitation.
She deserves the chance of happiness, doesn’t she?
However, the past she thought she'd buried resurfaces when she receives an email containing a name; Anne Edwards. A name she thought she’d left behind.
When the emails escalate, she knows she has to find out who is behind them, but at what cost?
Melanie is about to learn that her past will shape her future forever…
This book was previously published as The Deadly Truth
Praise
'This is an amazing book, just buy it, and sit back and enjoy the ride. A massive five shiny starts from me.'
—Bestselling author Anita Waller
'This deliciously twisty story kept me up late at night, desperate to know the outcome. A definite 5 stars.'
—Bestselling author Keri Beevis
My Review
Valerie Keogh returns following The Nurse with her latest suspense, THE LAWYER —Just when a woman is in the prime of her career with a promotion, her past she has tried desperately to forget comes to the surface in this twisty psychological thriller of OBSESSION AND REVENGE.
Melanie Scott, age 40, has finally made it—a junior partnership, a corporate lawyer with Masters Corporate Law in London. She is proud and celebrating with staff colleagues at a trendy London restaurant.
There, she meets a distinguished man, Hugo Field, an architect. They plan a dinner date, and Melanie gives him her email address versus her phone number.
She has tried to leave her past behind. Something happened when she was 15 that destroyed lives. A name she was never going to escape: Anne Edwards—a nightmare from twenty-five years earlier. A guy died due to her false rumors.
She and Hugo go for that dinner date and later back to her house. Then he ghosts her. She also has a friend, Caitlin, a forensic detective investigator she confides in about the new guy in her life.
Then, Melanie receives an email from nobody@gmail.com. This person knows about her past! Why taunt her now when her career is going so well?
Her boss calls her in, explaining a leak in a confidential merger their firm was working on. There is insider trading. She knows she has not leaked anything, but could it be Hugh who got into her computer when at her house?
She confesses to her boss, and he does not blame her, and they put the merger on hold. In the meantime, Hugo winds up dead. The professional website and the good-looking man have been taken down. The email is now nonexistent.
What is going on? To pay for what she had done all those years ago? Was that what this was all about? Someone learned about her past and wanted payment, blackmail, psychological torture, or revenge.
She tells her boss she will work from home for a few days and returns to her hometown, Wethersham, to face her past and try and figure out who is doing this.
Melanie was not going to let anything mess up her promotion. However, when she visits, she learns her best friend, Cherry, is dead, which was part of the scheme back when. She was also in her career's prime with a new promotion to principal at the school. They say it was suicide, but was it? Are the two connected?
Melanie had changed her name after this nightmare of her youth. Her mom said they had to move since their life was ruined due to her childish mistakes, and someone died. Before social media, gossip and whispers could destroy someone's reputation.
Why come forward now after twenty-five years? As things start closing in back at her apartment, more emails and strange things happen. There is an investigation. Others connected to the case wind up dead.
Often, monsters are hiding in plain sight. In the process, she may learn that past events may not be her fault. How far will some go for revenge?
THE LAWYER (formerly titled The Deadly Truth) is a complex, twisty, suspenseful psychological thriller. However, I guessed the perpetrator's identity early on but was anxious to see how all the puzzle pieces would fit together.
I enjoy this author's work, and no, this is not a legal thriller, and besides the protagonist being a lawyer, that is about it. The Deadly Truth would have been a more fitting title. Although not a favorite, it is an entertaining, twisty suspense where the past collides with the present with a cast of supporting characters.
Thanks to Boldwood Books for a gifted ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating; 5 Stars
Pub Date: Sept 13, 2023
About the Author
Valerie Keogh lives in Wiltshire with her husband and a huge black cat, Fatty Arbuckle. She grew
up reading Agatha Christie and initially wrote crime novels - she now writes psychological thrillers.
The Little Lies was shortlisted for the Crime Fiction Lovers Award 2021.Valerie has a BA in English and an MA in American Literature. She is currently published with Boldwood Books.
Order of publication:
Deadly Sleep (2016)
Twisted Power (2016)
Bitter Business (2017)
Wicked Secret (2018)
Secrets Between Us (2018)
The Housewife 2019
The Dublin Murder Mysteries (2020)
The Three Women (2020)
The Perfect Life (2020)
The Little Lies (2020)
The Deadly Truth (2021)
The Lies He Told (2021)
The Couple in the Photograph (2021)
A Taste of Deceit (2022)
The Lodger (2022)
The Widow (2022)
The Trophy Wife (2023)
Like Valerie Keogh's facebook page: facebook.com/valeriekeoghnovels
