Review: A Game of Lies

A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

The second book in a series featuring Detective Constable Ffion Morgan, divorced, owner of a huge dog with separation anxiety, born and brought up in the small Welsh town of Cwm Coed on the border with Cheshire.

A new reality TV series called Exposure is being shot on Pen y Draig mountain near Ffion's home, she wouldn't normally be interested but Ceri Jones, her local postie is one of the contestants and Ffion's baby sister Seren's boyfriend Caleb is the producer's unpaid runner so she feels obliged to watch the first episode. But in a shock twist none of the contestants foresaw, the first episode reveals that this isn't a survival show, instead each contestant has a shocking secret and the only way to avoid their secret being revealed on screen is to win the competition.

Then one of the contestants escapes, too ashamed of his family and friends hearing his secret and the police are called in to help trace him before he dies of exposure (or kills himself). As the contestants are exposed one after the other it becomes clear that everyone has a reason to loath the series producer and originator of the show Miles Young so it can only be a matter of time before someone makes good on their threats to kill him off.

I enjoyed this book, but not quite as much as the first book. I suspected the twist right from the very beginning which lessened my enjoyment, although I wasn't able to connect the dots to determine the killer's identity. I do wonder how many more books Clare Mackintosh can get in this series when it is set in a small Welsh town where everyone knows everyone else, surely there's a limit to how many groups of outsiders can come en masse to stay with one of them being murdered? Maybe the next book will be set in Cheshire, current base of DS Leo Brady, where Welsh language skills are required?

Anyway, a good detective story that kept me guessing with lots of interesting Welsh characters.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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