Lie with Me

4 stars. This author is new to me-it was a Spring 2017 selection of the Richard and Judy book club so that's how it came on my radar. Paul is an author, a womanizer, lazy, a liar and is always looking for the next (young) girl and the next person to abet his idleness. When the man who has let Paul house sit his flat for 6 years decides to move back to London, Paul has to move back home with his Mum. But a chance meeting with an old college friend leads to a new woman in his life. She's a wealthy widowed lawyer who is a similar age to Paul but he sees her as his next big chance and sets out to charm her. It words and soon he is invited to join her and her two kids (and the college friend and his family) at her place in Greece. Paul builds lie upon lies until a situation develops that he can't lie his way out of. This was a very good thriller and I enjoyed the read. Plan to read more of her books.

Consigliato

Such a good 'plot' - with a twist in the end. It only took me two evenings to read - and then I passed it on to two different friends - who enjoyed it as much as me. Will defintely be reading more of Sabin Durrants novels.

Not my usual thing, a psychological thriller. I have never read The Girl on the Train and I packed in Gone Girl after 50-pages but this is at No 18 in the Amazon charts: in hardback. In hardback! It will take over the entire universe when it is released in paperback. Someone on Amazon while awarding it 5~ says: ‘I always say that I don't have to like characters in a book to enjoy the book. That's a good thing with this book because, to be brutally honest, I really didn't like any of them. They were all particularly horrid in their own individual way and, I guess, this will probably split enjoyment and indeed reviews/ratings’. I agree, I felt much the same way and ultimately, really I felt I had been entertained, kind of but didn’t learn much and it was a bit of a contaminating experience. I gave a couple of days of my life to this, not certain it was worth the effort.The first-person narrator is Paul Morris, 42 years old. Paul is not an appealing character . . . arrogant, lazy, drinks over-much, broke, a string of broken relationships and an irredeemable liar. He hooks up with goodie-two shoes human-rights widow, Alice and wheedles himself into her home and family and then to the Greek Islands on the family’s annual visit to their holiday home. Her teenage children cannot stand him and he finds that another family have also been invited and he can’t stand them so into this web of relationships and history, Paul, totally oblivious to everyone and everything except his own needs, blunders along, lying quite unnecessarily about what he does, how much money he has, his life and digging bigger and bigger holes for himself. But as he slowly discovers he actually has much bigger things to worry about.Nicely written as you would expect from a Guardian columnist, it is well-paced and cleverly structured. I thought it plodded a bit during the Greek Island sojourn but I am quibbling; it’s almost impossible for any author to withhold key pieces of information in a thriller without resorting to treading water at some point.If you like this kind of thing it is a class act

Paul Morris is a serial liar.... a washed up novelist with one hit under his belt years ago, he is still riding on the coat tails of that first book success. Living in his friend's flat, sponging off his wealthy friends, a serial lothario, he really is on the rocks. A chance meeting with an old school pal, Anthony (no, Andrew) Hopkins leads him into accepting an invitation for dinner, then embarking on a romance with Andrew's pal, Alice Mackenzie. Mum, Widow, and quite wealthy-it makes Paul think about how much his life has taken a downward turn. Alice then invites him, Andrew and his wife Tina, and their children on their annual sojourn to her holiday home in Pyros, Greece. Once there, all is not what it seems with this family and their friends....Sabine is very, very clever. She weaves a story, then draws you in, which you have no hope of putting down once started. Although Paul really is a loser, he is a foppish dandy- which you can't help but secretly admire, living constantly on his wits. It really is a psychological thriller, a roller coaster of human misery which by the end leaves you wanting more. 5 stars from me. Well done!!