J.P. Pomare is a regular guest on my show Final Draft in part because he is so damn prolific but more importantly he writes compelling, pacy thrillers that have the effect of glueing you to your chair turning pages till the last gripping moment. Last year Josh and I spoke about his incredible thriller of life in a cult In The Clearing. It delved into the psychology of belonging and how people are indoctrinated by a set of ideas. And that’s the other incredible thing about J.P. Pomare’s books; they leverage fascinating stories to explore ideas that are all too relevant to our world.J.P. Pomare’s latest novel is called Tell Me Lies, and you might be able to guess from the name that this has a lot to say about the ways we live in a world that constantly confounds our ideas of truth.Margot is a successful psychologist; thriving practice, beautiful family and an academic interest in antisocial personality disorder. On an otherwise uneventful night Margot is woken by the sound of broken glass. The family escapes through their open front door to see flames blooming from Margot’s office window. Someone has firebombed their house!All these events quickly pile on Margot in the book's opening. Margot’s worsening personal situation is interspersed with transcripts from a mysterious trial playing out in our periphery; someone is lying and has betrayed trust leading to a death…Throughout all this Margot continues to see her patients; one, a student whose academic career is under threat for writing papers for profit, another the moderator of horrifically graphic content for a social media platform and finally a young woman so chronically addicted to picking the wrong guy she cannot see the danger she is in.When her clinic is also firebombed Margot must confront the possibility that one of her patients might be behind the violence.
Tell Me Lies confronts the difficult reality of how we respond when we know someone is lying. It’s a fascinating conceit and one that is ultimately flipped on the reader as we are drawn ever more tightly into MArgot’s first person narration.Compelling stories told well have a way of convincing us they are real. How far into a tale must you get before you find yourself invested in its outcome?Every day on social media we are encouraged by politicians, media outlets and friends to play amateur psychologist on the myriad personalities that filter through our feeds. When stories contradict we believe we can tell the truth from the lies but how do we know?Tell Me Lies is a gripping story, drip feeding information and challenging us to solve the mystery ahead of Margot. As we dive deeper we find we it harder to separate the stories we are hearing from what we want to believe and even as we find ourselves shouting at Margot that she’s got it all wrong there’s more twists to come.I read Tell Me Lies in just a few sittings. It’s popcorn reading with caviar ideas (I absolutely should not do metaphors!)This one’s a must for lovers of psychological crimeIf you want to discover more J.P. Pomare joined me on Final Draft and you can check that conversation out on the podcast