Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Book Author: David Ellis

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.

Look Closer is one of the most original mysteries I’ve read in some time.  The book’s jacket says it all:  “…absolutely nothing is what it seems.”

Simon is a respected law professor in Chicago.  When the novel opens he’s standing in the foyer of his lover’s house, looking at her body dangling from the second floor landing.  It’s Halloween, and she’s wearing a cat costume that’s all black, right down to the polish on her nails.  Simon, perhaps prophetically, is dressed as the Grim Reaper.

Five months before Halloween, on May 13 to be exact, Simon spots Lauren on a Chicago street corner.  She’s the girl he had a one-night stand with nineteen years earlier.  He hasn’t seen her since, but not a day has gone by since then without thinking of her.  But he’s determined to put that memory behind him and forget that he’s seen her again.

However, by July, the temptation has become too much to resist.  After following her obsessively on Facebook, he “accidentally” runs into her at the Grace Country Club where they are both members.  Simon never ever goes there–his exercise activity is jogging–but Lauren’s Facebook posts show her at the club playing tennis and golf and having lunch with friends.  So there he is, trying to play it cool when they meet but actually thrilled by Lauren’s suggestion of another meeting.  And then another.

Then we meet Vicky, Simon’s wife, who has her own secrets.  Simon is a very wealthy man, or he will be in a matter of months.  That’s when the trust ends that his late father made to ensure that the woman Simon married was not marrying him for the twenty million dollars he would inherit upon his father’s death.

The important clause in the trust states that the money is held solely in Simon’s name for ten years, during which time he could only spend it on himself, not on or for Vicky.  After the ten years, the money may be spent by either one on anything at all.  And the tenth anniversary, the all-important date, is just weeks away.

To make certain that everything goes the way she wants it, Vicky hires Christian Newsome, a financial adviser new to the Chicago area.  To double-check she has the facts correct, she asks him if after the trust ends on November 3rd she can spend the money any way she wants and without Simon’s approval or knowledge, and he tells her she’s correct.

Look Closer is written in four voices–Simon’s, Vicky’s, Christian’s, and Jane’s, a detective in the town’s police department.  The story goes back and forth between May and November 3rd, with the various speakers presenting the story from his or her point of view and knowledge.  Truly, just when you’re certain something will happen, it doesn’t, and when you’re certain something won’t happen, it does.

David Ellis has written a fascinating mystery, not only because of its unique plot but because of its characters.  You can read more about him 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.