Book Review: This is How I Lied

Heather Gudenkauf spins a story of small town secrets in This is How I Lied, a suspenseful work of detective fiction which finds a cop, Maggie Kennedy-O'Keefe, investigating a cold case 25 years after a new piece of evidence emerges in connection with the death of her friend Eve Knox. And did I tell you Maggie is seven months pregnant? Although her job is to break the news to Eve's family, round up the evidence and send it for testing, it becomes much more than that after she begins receiving threatening calls and her barn is torched, leading her down on a trail of cover-ups and lies to arrive at the tragic truth of what really transpired on the fateful day of the murder. Whilst not all strands get their payoffs, Gudenkauf creates a fine balance between action and tension, layering the story with twists and turns and throwing in more complexity to the drama with each revelation, even as the narrative unfolds through alternating viewpoints and switches back and forth in time, ultimately building to a satisfying conclusion.