Do Tell

On past occasions, I've written about a few novellas I've listened to on Audible, available free through a subscription. The past repeats as I now write about a thriller by J.P. Pomare: Tell Me Lies.

Margot Scott is a psychologist with a happy family... but it wasn't always that way. Dark episodes in her past come roaring back into the present with she takes on a charming new client named Cormac. His flirtations seem harmless enough at first, until a fire at Margot's home endangers everyone and upsets the equilibrium of her life. The fire was set intentionally... but it may not even have anything to do with Cormac. Is Margot being stalked by another of her patients?

There are a lot of fun threads at play in this mystery-thriller. But it's ultimately a lot more successful as a thriller than a mystery, as the writing gives quite a lot away. A slow introduction of characters leaves you with few "suspects" early on, which makes something that might have been a "whodunit" into more of a "whydunit." A prologue framing device reveals action from many months later in the narrative, providing far too many clues for the clever listener to reason what the journey is going to be to get that point.

But the characters are rather well drawn. Tell Me Lies is Margot's first-person narrative, and author J.P. Pomare does a good job making her complex and believable. You follow a well-intentioned person one step at a time down a dark road to things she wouldn't have thought of doing at first. Information in the narrative is hidden in ways that feel natural for Margot, rather than a construct of the writer to maintain suspense. Margot's family are hardly major players, but they are fleshed out enough to be more than utilitarian. And Cormac is a fun mix of charisma and danger.

The 6-hour-plus tale is narrated by Aimee Horne, who is the best reason to experience this story. She has the perfect pace for building tension, does an excellent job of delineating characters, and juggles some challenging accent work. The story is set in Australia, and she herself is Australian; yet she also delivers a flawless Irish accent for the mysterious Cormac, moves her pitch up and down all over the place for different characters, and more. I'm quite certain that reading this story on the page would be less effective than hearing it in this format.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this performer's polish takes a story I might have given a B- (it's rather predictable, and a bit long) and lifts it all the way to a B+ (the journey is fun, it's interesting to spend time in Margot's head). Unless you listen to so many thrillers that you'd likely be jaded by this one, I'd say it's probably worth your time.