Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Would you hire a defense attorney who had a medical diagnosis of pathological liar?  One who pled guilty to battery on a police officer?  One who had been disbarred for a period of five years?  If those things don’t dissuade you, Leo Banaloff is your man.

As The Best Lies opens, Leo is being interrogated at his local police station for the murder of Cyrus Balik.  To say that things look bleak for Leo is an understatement.

Although the police concede that Cyrus was “the worst of the worst,” a human trafficker, a drug dealer, a murderer, and that no one is mourning his death, someone still has to be held accountable.  Leo’s blood was found on the victim’s shirt, identified because his DNA was on file due to an arrest while he was in college, and his fingerprints were found on the knife protruding from Cyrus’ neck. 

It would seem to be an open-shut-case, but the investigation is ongoing.  That may be because, as the authorities have learned, nothing is as it seems with Leo.

Bonnie Tressler is his first client after he’s reinstated to the bar.  She ran away from home when she was 14 and was picked up by Cyrus Balik.  He got her addicted to drugs, raped her repeatedly, and when the son whom he fathered by Bonnie was four, he took the child away and Bonnie never saw the boy again.

It’s 20 years later, and Bonnie is in a much better place now and wants to help get Cyrus off the streets.  She tells Leo that she’s ready to go ahead with this “…because he could be doing it to other women right now.  He probably is.”

Bonnie and Leo go to the Deemer Park police and tell the story to Sergeant Mary Cagnola and her brother, Special FBI Agent Christopher Roberti.  They believe Bonnie and Leo but aren’t sure of how to confront Cyrus; three weeks later, while they’re still working on a plan, the local police find Bonnie’s body in an abandoned house.

The brother and sister are mystified about how Cyrus learned that Bonnie had come to them and told her story, knowing how tightly they had guarded her identity.  When Mary states that the gangster seems to be aware of everything going on around him and that he’s really good at covering his tracks, Chris responds, “Then we gotta be better.”

The Best Lies moves in a non-linear format, opening in January 2024 and going back and forth over a 30 year time period.  That, and the complexity of the plot, requires close attention from the reader, but it is well worth it.  The characters are brilliant, and the plot moves in so many different directions that to describe it as serpentine is an understatement.  David Ellis has written an outstanding mystery.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.