In the Company of Liars
A Thriller
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- £3.49
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- £3.49
Publisher Description
From bestselling and award-winning author David Ellis
Told in chronological reverse, from its enigmatic end to its brilliant beginning, the novel is centered on a woman who is on trial for murder—Allison Pagone, a mother caught between competing forces, each represented by someone who may not care if the pressure kills her in the end.
A prosecutor wants Allison convicted and put on death row. An FBI agent believes she can squeeze her into ratting on her family. A daughter and an ex-husband need to save their own skins. And circling them all: a group who would prefer to eliminate her quietly and anonymously, but who also are not what they seem.
Our first picture of Allison is in the moments following her death. The story then moves backward in time like the cult film Memento: an hour earlier, then the day before, back and back to the beginning, until we can see what’s really happened—and, most shocking, what hasn’t. At every turn, Allison Pagone knows that what she sees may not be what’s real. The only sure thing is her place in a vortex of half-truths, threats, and suspicion. When her nightmare is over, will she awake in the company of friends—or in the company of liars?
In the Company of Liars is a tantalizing tour de force—a “compelling new novel of intrigue, murder, and terrorism” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Edgar-winner Ellis takes some big chances in his fourth book (after 2004's Jury of One), and he pulls them off in grand style. The Chicago trial lawyer branches out from his previous legal thrillers into a minefield of world terrorism and misplaced family loyalties, writing not only in the present tense but working backward from the death of his lead character, author Allison Pagone, who ostensibly kills herself after getting tangled up in a terrorist plot through her lover, a lawyer whom she's suspected of murdering. Despite the inherent difficulties of his time device (each chapter runs forward in normal time), Ellis manages to create a large amount of suspense and curiosity about Pagone, mostly by having us see her involvement in plots and crimes through the eyes of a dedicated, level-headed FBI agent named Jane McCoy. There's enough high-level corruption to keep several investigative agencies busy, and some wonderfully mordant scenes of the underbellies of law and government in action. This is another impressive performance from a writer who expands his ambition and artistry from book to book.
