Title: Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear
Cat Kinsella Series Book One
Publisher: Harper
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 352 pages
Book Rating: B
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss
Summary:
In this gripping debut procedural, a young London policewoman must probe dark secrets buried deep in her own family’s past to solve a murder and a long-ago disappearance.
Your father is a liar. But is he a killer?
Even liars tell the truth . . . sometimes.
Twenty-six-year-old Cat Kinsella overcame a troubled childhood to become a Detective Constable with the Metropolitan Police Force, but she’s never been able to banish these ghosts. When she’s called to the scene of a murder in Islington, not far from the pub her estranged father still runs, she discovers that Alice Lapaine, a young housewife who didn’t get out much, has been found strangled.
Cat and her team immediately suspect Alice’s husband, until she receives a mysterious phone call that links the victim to Maryanne Doyle, a teenage girl who went missing in Ireland eighteen years earlier. The call raises uneasy memories for Cat—her family met Maryanne while on holiday, right before she vanished. Though she was only a child, Cat knew that her charming but dissolute father wasn’t telling the truth when he denied knowing anything about Maryanne or her disappearance. Did her father do something to the teenage girl all those years ago? Could he have harmed Alice now? And how can you trust a liar even if he might be telling the truth?
Determined to close the two cases, Cat rushes headlong into the investigation, crossing ethical lines and trampling professional codes. But in looking into the past, she might not like what she finds. .
Review:
Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear is an engrossing murder mystery that becomes a tangled web of personal and professional for Detective Constable Cat Kinsella.
DC Kinsella is assigned to Murder Investigation Team 4 but due to her reaction at crime scene, her boss, DCI Kate Steele, keeps her on the periphery of their newest investigation. Cat and her partner Detective Sergeant Luigi Parnell are investigating the death of Alice Lapaine. Cat is uneasy due to the fact that Alice’s body was found close to the pub where she lived until she was eight years old.
Cat at one time adored her father, Mike McBride, but ever since the family vacation in Ireland eighteen years earlier, she finds it impossible to trust him. During their time in Mulderrin, seventeen year old Maryanne Doyle went missing and Cat knows for certain her father lied to the police during their search for missing teenager. When the current investigation into Alice’s death converges with Maryanne’s unsolved disappearance, Cat faces an ethical dilemma as she wrestles with whether or not she should divulge her family’s connection to the two cases.
Cat’s tangled family history continues to define her and sometimes leaves her lacking the ability to distance herself from her cases. She is overly empathetic but her quest for justice for victims is admirable. She struggles to remain on the sidelines of the investigation into Alice’s murder but her suspicions about her father make it difficult for her obey DCI Steele’s orders. Cat has the utmost respect for her partner but she occasionally takes advantage of their close relationship to insert herself deeper into the ongoing inquiry.
The investigation into Alice’s murder moves in fits and starts throughout the novel. Alice’s husband is of course closely looked at but an unexpected revelation takes the investigation in an entirely different direction. Discovering her whereabouts in the days leading up to her murder provides frustratingly few leads about who could have her or why. Cat remains on edge as she worries about her father’s possible involvement in Alice’s death and her relationship with her family deteriorates at an alarming rate.
Despite being a little slow-paced, Sweet Little Lies is nonetheless an intriguing mystery with a clever storyline and a fantastic cast of characters. Cat is a multi-layered protagonist who is genuinely conflicted about whether or not to reveal her family’s possible ties to the current investigation. With stunning twists and unexpected turns, Caz Frear brings the novel to a truly shocking conclusion as Cat unearths the truth about who murdered Alice and why. An outstanding police procedural that will leave readers eagerly awaiting the next installment in the Cat Kinsella series.
