Rewind back to the spring and Holly seems like she has it all. An adoring husband, a few rambunctious kids, a lovely home that was built by her ancestors and has been in the family for generations - she's pretty much known as super mom to her friends and neighbors. But Holly has a secret. A few, actually.
For starters, she secretly writes erotic romances and her books are fairly popular, so she makes a pretty penny from it, but no one would ever suspect this sweet, perfect mom as the author of these Fifty Shades type novels. She is also a world class enabler, especially when it comes to her family, and for the last year or so, she has been secretly helping her two brothers financially, to the point that she has been borrowing money from friends, including Laney, but she always pays it back, so no one has realized how deep a pit she has dug for herself and her unknowing family. She is about to lose the family home and her husband is none the wiser. It's for good reasons, of course. One brother is fighting cancer and doing chemo, while the other has been in rehab and is a recovering addict. But still, to not tell Oliver? With Holly's writing success, I'm sure she thought she could handle it, but under the burden of this stress, she hasn't been able to write a word and her publicist is about to kick her to the curb. And then something strange happens...
She's out walking her dog in the wee hours of the morning pondering her situation and unable to sleep when she hears someone struggling in the lake near her house. Barely stopping to think, she dives in and rescues a woman who was drowning, who turns out to be one of the newish and mysterious neighbors on her street, Vera Volkin, a beautiful Russian woman with long dark hair who bears a striking similarity to Holly's older sister, who died when she was just a tween. As it turns out, Vera blames the incident on some unsavory people she and her husband, Step, have been working for and oddly enough, Holly can help not only them, but also herself. All she has to do is steal a small sample of the research Oliver has been working on and not only will the Volkins pay her enough to put a nice dent in the money she owes on the house, but it will also help countless people suffering from dread diseases by getting treatment into their hands much quicker than Oliver's employer would have. Holly could never betray her husband in such a way, but maybe they'd never notice a few vials missing and she could be helping people and also herself.
Once Holly goes missing, things are looking pretty grim, but Laney is determined to get to the bottom of things. To make matters worse, she discovers her personal gun is missing from her safe. Was it the gun used to shoot the neighbor, and if so, who stole it? Surely Alfie hasn't gotten himself into trouble again, although she did see him sneaking around their garage during the block party last night. As Laney starts unraveling both Holly and Alfie's secrets, she goes down a rabbit hole of missing kids, human trafficking, and torture the likes of which she has never seen. By her side for it all is her boss's son, Jack Boswell, who's been helping her conduct an investigation on the side, but all the while, the sparks are flying between them. Can Laney find her friend, solve the case, and get the guy?
I enjoyed Behind the Lie, although I had a hard time connecting with some of the characters. Holly made so many stupid moves that I couldn't even feel sorry for her, while Laney was a much more approachable character. Mostly, they both just made me happy I don't have kids and that I don't do block parties. At any rate, Behind the Lie is a fun little thriller, although it's more about poor choices than anything else. Still, I enjoyed it enough to go back and read the first book in the series, Hide in Place, which is really, really good. It gave me a much better understanding of Laney, Alfie and Holly, so I suggest you read them in the proper order.
