The Perfect Lie by Karen Osman
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 10th August 2019
Purchase: Amazon
(release date: 8th AUgust 2019)
★★★★ 4.5 stars
Having thought I had read Karen Osman before - but I'd actually confused two different authors with books of the same name - I delved into THE PERFECT LIE with eagerness. Of course, it turns out that it was actually Amy Bird's "The Good Mother" I had read and not the one by this author, so therefore she is knew to me. Still that did not deter me as plundered through the pages.
It begins with Claire who is happily married to high school sweetheart Chris with two sons Josh 17 and Jamie 5. Now with her youngest child starting school, she decides to return to work as a lawyer with the firm she co-set up with her good friend Julia. However Jamie is a more challenging child than Josh, who had been her perfect child, had ever been and therein lies the perennial problem of juggling her demanding job with being a good mum to her children and meeting their daily needs. When the offer of a neighbour's daughter as a childminder comes up, the solution becomes ideal with everything yet again falling into place. Her life once again seems perfect.
But just as soon as she is back at work, Julia hands her a case that will bring her past back to haunt her - in more ways than one. A rape case, in the victim accuses two men of the offence means long hours and long days with Claire going over testimony and statements in preparation for her day in court. Claire wants to pass the case on to someone else but the client had been specific - they wanted Claire. Why? What did they know about her past that would warrant her being the ideal voice for the victim?
When Claire starts bringing her work home, it seems she can no longer keep her professional and her personal life separate, as Chris shows little understanding for her needs or predicament. Even his promises to help out with the children more were empty as he continued to work late night after night despite Claire having her own meetings and late nights to contend with. The childminder may have been ideal for their situation but even she couldn't stay half the night. But Chris refused to see beyond his own needs and his own job to bear any empathy or understanding for Claire's. In his opinion, she should give up the idea of working altogether and remain at home.
The fact that she was working on this rape case only fuelled his cause, remembering full well what had happened to Claire back when they were in high school. She didn't need the reminders; she didn't need this case; she didn't need to work.
When the narrative backtracks some three decades to the late 80s, we meet the teenage Claire who appeared, in some ways, very different from the woman she became. As a teenager, whilst faced with the usual fickle demands of her peers, she also longed to be part of a popular clique - The Queen Bees - but at what cost? Having been dared to kiss the most unpopular guy in school, Paul Jones, on a date that she must instigate, Claire found she actually enjoyed his company. But what was to be her first dare as the initial initiation into the clique turned out to be an attraction she couldn't understand - and which would not be acceptable to the others - Claire found she could not keep away from Paul, meeting up in the library whenever they could. So they embarked on a secret relationship which would cost her, if revealed, her reputation and her place in the group as a Queen Bee she had worked so hard for.
After months of secret meetings, it seemed only natural that their relationship should progress to the next level. Or should it? But when one day, the door suddenly opens to the unused drama room and Charlotte, the head Queen Bee, is shocked by what she sees. Pants round his ankles with Claire's knickers on the floor, Paul is wrenched off her and Claire is taken away in tears and the arms of her friends.
Then news travelled. Stories told. Opinions made. What had been a beautiful thing, albeit secret, was now made into a sordid atrocity. Such was the shame that Paul and his family had to move away, as the school turned him into a pariah. Then abandoning school altogether as well as his dreams of becoming a doctor, Paul grew a chip that became so embedded on his shoulder...unable to escape the shame of what had been done to him. He trusted her; he loved her; and she had betrayed him.
As an adult, with her reputation still held in the highest regard, Claire finds herself faced with a terrifying prospect. Her son Josh is accused of accused of a crime of the most abhorrent nature and suddenly she finds herself under attack and everything she tried to forget in her past is back to destroy her in a final retribution.
And now, the perfect life is coming undone with the perfect lie...
Narrated in both the past and the present, mainly by Claire, we do get to hear the whispers of another more sinister voice sprinkled throughout - so malevolent in its creepiness - with the final word set to turn everything on its head. As soon we learn more about the event from the past is not what it seems. The final twist is just brilliant and ultimately heartbreaking.
I enjoyed watching how the characters interacted with one another, despite disliking several of them. They were well written and each played their parts well. I'm not sure which Claire I preferred - teenage or adult - as both were a little self absorbed at times though her ability to look beyond what others see as a teenager and accept the unpopular boy at school as he was was a little overshadowed by her fickleness to remain with the "in" crowd. I would have preferred her to stand up for him, but having been a teenage girl myself, I know how improbable that concept could be to someone of that age...when acceptance is everything. And then, the lie.
I really liked Josh. He was nothing like most teenage boys portrayed - he really was a perfect child. Jamie may have been cute but I find the demands of small children annoying, and he could be at times. Chris was an obtuse self-absorbed prick, in my opinion. Whatever did Claire see in him? Despite Charlotte's claim of "imagine the perfect babies you would make!" in her fickle teenage brain. I didn't like any of the Queen Bees, least of all Charlotte. I hated those kinds of people when I was that age, I hate them even more now. They were basically bullies. And had they not been, and could accept what was, then maybe none of what happened would have happened. In the end, while the responsibility was ultimately Claire's doing, I still think those girls had a lot to answer for as well.
While THE PERFECT LIE does begin as a slow burn, don't give up because when it picks up it REALLY picks up...and you won't want to put it down until the very last page.
Although I did predict much of what took place - both past and present - I didn't foresee the outcome of this highly addictive read. It certainly didn't ruin the story for me as I love to try and piece the clues together myself whilst devouring an intriguing read such as this.
It does leave you questioning, what could have happened had there not been that perfect lie? Would the past have then directed the future in what became THE perfect lie? You really are left with pondering the reality of how so many lives can change on the basis of a lie.
With secrets, lies, deception and the most unimaginable betrayal, THE PERFECT LIE is simply brilliant in its execution and its ending.
I would like to thank #KarenOsman, #NetGalley and #Aria for an ARC of #ThePerfectLie in exchange for an honest review.
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