If you say that a good psychological thriller is filled with suspense and keeps you guessing until the end, then I would say that Lying With Strangers by James Grippando is that and a whole lot more.
Peyton Shields is a first year’s resident at a Children’s hospital. Kevin Shields is a lawyer. You could say that their marriage is not a good one but that is only part of the story. The other part is that Peyton is driving home late at night in the snow when she is run off the road and is nearly killed, only to be saved by a mysterious stranger in a black mask.
From there, the story seems to take off in different directions, the suspense building from Peyton’s bad marriage to her being stalked which leads to murder. The story is unpredictable, even with a murder trial coming.
I’m not a big fan of legal thrillers but in this case, I liked what I was reading about the trial since it brought out another side of lawyers that you don’t see in TV shows like The Good Wife or Law and Order. I like the fact that the lawyers look awful in this book which only added to the suspense and made the story even more riveting as a result.
In reading some other reviews, people said that they didn’t like the heroine. I could agree with that and I don’t see anything wrong in not liking the characters in this book. If anything, that only made the book more interesting and different to me. I think that helped in making this book more unique with a good plot that was driven by Peyton and Kevin.
At times, I thought that this was a tough book to put down and there were other times when I thought that I didn’t believe in the decisions that were made by Peyton and Kevin as they continued to have problems. Part of me was skeptical but when you’re dealing with ordinary people who make bad decisions, then there was a part of me that felt that it was okay since that made the plot more unpredictable.
In reading Lying with Strangers, I came away feeling that the characters weren’t memorable but I liked the idea that the characters were undesirable such as the lawyers who were more realistic since they went out of their way to guide Peyton and Kevin in different directions in order to pit them against each other, which was great in building suspense.
All in all, I liked Lying With Strangers because it’s the kind of book that was different in the sense that it portrays characters in a different way, much like you may see in a novel by Gil Brewer. To me, they left a bad taste in my mouth and in this case, I liked that, along with a very exciting ending.
I’m happy to give this book five stars and want to read other thrillers by James Grippando as well.
Ron Hummer
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