Sweet Little Lies

Starred review from June 25, 2018
Det. Constable Cat Kinsella, the heroine of British author Frear’s taut, psychologically twisted debut, always suspected that her father, Michael McBride, knew more than he let on about the disappearance of Maryanne Doyle, a teenager who went missing in 1998 when eight-year-old Kinsella and her family were on vacation in Mulderrin, Ireland. For one thing, Michael, a serial adulterer, was seen with Maryanne but later lied to the police about having had any contact with her. In 2016, Alice Lapaine, a part-time pub chef, is found murdered near the London pub frequented by Kinsella’s father. While working the case, Kinsella and her partner, Det. Sgt. Luigi Parnell, draw a frustrating blank around Alice’s life, and even her less-than-forthcoming husband, Thomas, is a weak suspect at best, until a routine DNA test reveals startling connections to the Doyle investigation. Kinsella knows she must tread carefully with this new information and decide how much, if any, of her own sordid family history she wants to make public. As the case takes its own twists and unexpected turns, just as fascinating are the mental gymnastics that Kinsella performs in an effort to keep her personal and professional lives from colliding. Readers will root for the spiky Kinsella, with her empathetic center, and hope to see more of her in future books. Agent: Erin Kelly, Curtis Brown (U.K.).

July 1, 2018

The past collides with the present in Frear's first mystery. In 1998, Maryanne Doyle went missing; 18 years later, Det. Cat Kinsella is still haunted by her own family's possible involvement in the case. Her dad knew Maryanne but had lied to the police. When Cat is called to a crime scene near her father's pub, it soon becomes apparent that the female murder victim is linked to Maryanne. Frear's witty yet dark writing pulls readers into Cat's ethical dilemma of whether to stay on the case. As she and her fellow detectives interview many witnesses, the author demonstrates her talent in fleshing out complicated personalities of even minor characters. VERDICT The details can get overwhelming at times, but readers should not overlook anything because secrets and lies come back with a vengeance, resulting in an intense page-turner. Admirers of the police procedurals of Tana French and the thrillers of Clare Mackintosh will welcome Frear's dramatic debut.[See Prepub Alert, 2/11/18.]--Natalie Browning, Longwood Univ. Lib., Farmville, VA

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2018

D.C. Cat Kinsella is investigating an Islington housewife's strangling with some trepidation. Her estranged father's pub is not far away, and an unexpected phone call links the victim to Irish lass Maryanne, who went missing years ago after Cat and her family met her on holiday. Back then, Cat knew her dad was being devious about Maryanne. A 75,000-copy first printing for this big-buzzing debut.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2018
When a young London detective delves into the life of a murder victim, she finds out that the woman may have deep connections to her own family's past in Frear's debut.Cat Kinsella remembers the summer she spent as a child in Mulderrin, Ireland, because it was then that glamorous Maryanne Doyle went missing. Cat has always suspected that her father, a charming ne'er-do-well who owns a pub and has connections to organized crime, may have played a sinister role in Maryanne's disappearance, but she's never been able to prove anything. The tension has poisoned her relationships with both her father and her sister, and as Christmas approaches, and she pulls a new murder case, she looks for ways to avoid confronting her past. She's already in department-mandated therapy, mostly for "over-empathizing" with murder victims, and while she gets on well with her partner, Luigi Parnell, and the rest of the squad, her personal life seems a mess. As Cat and Parnell investigate Alice Lapaine's death, however, they quickly discover that she is not who they thought she was, and as they unearth level after level of deception and lies, Cat begins to fear that her own secrets may be exposed as well. Though the book begins in medias res in terms of Cat's life and her memories, it's a bit slow to start. Cat is somewhat prickly, which makes her hard to get to know, but as the investigation and the story wind on, she earns our sympathy and our trust because we can see that, while flawed, she acts for the victims, and she struggles with the conflict she feels for her own family. The solution to the mystery is a legitimate surprise, and Cat's evolution from one-dimensional sad sack to complex, honest adult is both believable and welcome, putting her on par with Susie Steiner's and Tana French's female detectives.A truly satisfying--and gritty--mystery.

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July 1, 2018
London detective Cat Kinsella has hated her father for as long as she can remember. He treated her mother terribly, Cat believes. Worse, when the family visited the mother's Ireland home years before, a local teen girl went missing, and Cat knows deep down that her father had something to do with it. The long-ago disappearance comes back to haunt the detective when she is assigned the investigation of a related present-day murder and finds her family ties pitted against police loyalties. This book exposes readers to a sad side of Irish society and its seamy connection to London's underworld. Frear has fashioned a remarkably rich and sympathetic character in Cat, and her portrayal of dysfunctional families, especially their mix of world-weary dialogue interspersed with cutting comments, is cringingly realistic. This is an ideal read-alike for another impressive debut reviewed in this issue, Dervla McTiernan's The Ruin; it will also work as a way of keeping Tana French fans happy while waiting for French's next book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)