Every once in a while, one needs a fun book such as this
Howard Roughan balances reasonable well written suspense with a nearly plausable plot. What he does better than most of this rather sordid genre, is to develop characters that are real, true and believable Dr. David Rembler and Terry Garrett are among them here and their attraction is both palpable and natural. Roughan writings are way above James Patterson (to whom he seemingly owes his career and I don't particulary care for) but not in the Connelly, Coben, Crais or Lehane camp. But don't let that stop you from taking it to the beach or on a plane. It is simply good fun.
It's bad. Avoid it.
It's worse than implausible.
The setup is okay. Widowed psychologist David Remler falls for a married patient who wants to kill her husband and herself. A late-night phone call convinces him that the worst has happened.
Cops find him covered in blood in a stranger's house with a murdered man upstairs. His mystery patient has disappeared, and she is not who she claimed to be. At that point, Remler should have found himself in the web of a tightly constructed frame.
Instead, he finds himself the centerpiece of a preposterous, hole-ridden plot with police who can't do basic police work and world-class legal experts who don't appear to have gone to law school.
The frame-up depends on coincidence and luck. His alleged motive is ridiculous. So-called twists are obvious fifty pages in advance. Intelligent people make conveniently absurd decisions and cell phones conveniently don't work. Manhattan professionals conveniently don't have receptionists, secretaries, associates, or colleagues.
It's like a bad TV show. Skip it.
Don't Believe the Lies, This Book is Sensational! I Promise!
Howard Roughan's The Promise of Lie is a sensational thriller that once it gets going you cannot put down until the end. It is a lot more unpredictable than his former novel The Up and Comer although this book does spend a bit long at the beginning of the novel setting up the scene for the plot and the main character David Remler. If it were any slower I probably would have stopped reading, but when Conrad is murdered the pace quickens to an exceptional pace for the remainder of the novel.
In the Promise of a Lie famous author and psychologist David Remler has a patient who no longer requires his services so a gap opens in his hectic schedule. A Sam Grant is on the waiting list so Dr Remler books him in only to discover he is a she. She is the husband of the wealthy Conrad Kent who has told her she will not get to see their child if she divorces him. He is quickly seduced by her beauty and after spending the night in his apartment the next morning rings him and tells him she has murdered Conrad and is about to kill herself. Remler races to her house where he finds Conrad dead in bed but no sign of Samantha. Two police officers however do find him there and it is not long before he discovers Samantha Kent had no son, claims she has never heard of him and doesn't look a thing like the Samantha Kent he was falling in love with, and of course did not murder her husband. With no evidence to support his story Remler is soon on trial for murder.
This is a great book. David Remler does do some stupid things that you would have imagined someone intelligent enough to become a psychologist would know not to, such as roll over a dead body. Also what would have happened if the slot never opened up for Samantha in his schedule or someone else had got it. Apart from this though, The Promise of Lie is a sensation thriller which I would highly recommend to anyone.
The Promise of a Lie
One of the best mysteries I have read in a long time. I read it in one day. Where has this author been hiding? Write more soon. Highly recommend. lalagee
Who is the Mystery Patient?
This psychological drama starts with the death of Rebecca in a head-on car collision. In time, David could deal with talking about her death. As he said, it was the thinking about it he couldn't handle. As time went by, he discovered tucked in the page of a baby book a piece of paper on which she had written across the top "Things we will teach our child." Ten important ways to live: to love, laugh, laugh some more, listen and learn, say 'please' and 'thank you,' have opinions, respect those of others, be honest, be a friend, and most of all to be yourself. He placed the book in a safe-deposit box.
To overcome his grief, he gets involved with one of his clients. Samantha who kills her husband. A courtroom scene ensues at which another 'mystery' client appears, and is subsequently murdered. "Every perfect murder starts with a perfect lie." S. Kent got life without the possibility of parole.
Three years later, with his new wife, Terry, he discovers that "life, in all its wonders, has a nasty habit of reminding you that you're never really in control." She'd found the safe-deposit key and reclaimed the list which she put in a frame and hung on the nursery wall. A little prosaic, but hey! that's life, the continuation of the species.
Trust is everything in therapy, but he had wondered "what if the doctor could be trusted but not the patient?" The trial takes up the majority of the story and is primitive in the specifics. He had previously written THE UP AND COMER, and plans to keep writing.
(32 reviews)
