The Liar's Girl
(eBook)

Will Hurley was an attractive, charming, and impressive student at Dublin's elite St. John's College-and Ireland's most prolific serial killer. Having stalked his five young victims, he drowned them in the muddy waters of the Grand Canal. Sentenced to life imprisonment when he was just nineteen, Will is locked away in the city's Central Psychiatric Hospital. Freshman Alison Smith moved to the Big Smoke to enroll in St. John's and soon fell hard for Will Hurley. Her world bloomed... and then imploded when Liz, her best friend, became the latest victim of the Canal Killer-and the Canal Killer turned out to be the boy who'd been sleeping in her bed. Alison fled to the Netherlands and, in ten years, has never once looked back. When a young woman's body is found in the Grand Canal, Garda detectives visit Will to see if he can assist them in solving what looks like a copycat killing. Instead, Will tells them he has something new to confess-but there's only one person he's prepared to confess it to. The last thing Alison wants is to be pulled back into the past she's worked so hard to leave behind. Reluctantly, she returns to the city she hasn't set foot in for more than a decade to face the man who murdered the woman she was supposed to become. Only to discover that, until now, Will has left out the worst part of all... It's 4:17 a.m. on Saturday morning...Will, now Alison, now Alison, now Alison, then Alison, now Alison, now Sundays, they're for fishing. Alison, now Alison, now Alison, then Alison, now Alison, now Amy was supposed to work until nine...Alison, now Alison, now Alison, then Alison, now Alison, now The pressure in his skull is so bad...Alison, now Alison, now Alison, now Alison, then Alison, now Alison, now This is his first dead body. Alison, now Alison, now Alison, now Alison, then Alison, now Alison, now He's called in sick to work. Alison, now Alison, now Alison, then Alison, now He doesn't have to be quiet...Alison, now Alison, then Alison, now Alison, now Alison, now Alison, now Will, one week ago "A very satisfying and twisty tale." "A twisty read in which the tragedies extend beyond the murders. Has a man's life been ruined by a crime he did not commit? If so, why did he confess?" "The Liar's Girl takes us back to the canals of Dublin in a story packed with psychological trickery and playing on the theme of the bad boy, and a very bad boy indeed. What do you do when you realize your boyfriend is a killer?" "[A] sophisticated psychological thriller...Howard's portrait of Alison as a bright girl full of hope starkly contrasts that of the woman whose light has been dimmed by tragedy. The exploration of the characters' inner lives-their jealousy, guilt, misguided chivalry-is as riveting as the crime." "Slick, smart, and stylish suspense. Characters so real I felt I knew them personally, a plot so taut it squeaked, and deeply poignant nods to the loss of innocence that every teenager craves and despairs. Really clever." "A meticulous, devious plot, superb writing, and vivid, sympathetic characters would be enough to make The Liar's Girl a stand-out read, but its dark, sad, inevitable ending makes it a triumph." "Read The Liar's Girl with the lights on. A thrilling whodunit with a shocking final twist." "Catherine Ryan Howard is such a skilled storyteller-every setting was evocative, every hook well-placed, every twist expertly timed. I flew through it! Astonishingly good." "An absolute belter of a book...[A] stand-out book in the thriller genre. Real and sympathetic characters, a flawlessly paced plot, and a genuinely original premise. I finished it at 2:00 a.m. last night, my heart pounding!" "The author grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck and she never lets go. She transforms Dublin into a sinister city of shadows, building the tension until breaking point...The plotting.