After stumbling upon her son’s beheaded body, Vera Moon is desperate to track down his killer. Meanwhile, perennial disappointment Dani Gerrity just wants to get out of town and away from the complex web of lies she’s constantly weaving. When a suspicious car accident brings the two of them together, they’re drawn into a dangerous investigation. Together, Vera and Dani begin to unravel the mystery behind the hit-and-run—and the corrupt man who arranged it.
Karen E. Osborne’s TANGLED LIES is a dual narrative novel whose story is split between two strong female characters. Dani is a habitual liar with a good nose for trouble and an interest in gossip. Vera is an older black woman who abhors swearing and loves doing the puzzles in newspapers. Both of them are stubborn to a fault. These two main characters often act as foils for one another, and their similarities and differences make them an alluring pair of protagonists for the audience to follow. What makes Vera and Dani so interesting is how flawed they are. Vera’s reliance on alcohol and the emotional turmoil surrounding her relationship with her family plague her throughout the novel. Dani’s lying makes it hard for other characters to believe her even when she’s being honest, and her ongoing romantic foibles are just the right amount of cringeworthy. The book’s main plot is centered around their crime-solving antics, but both characters also struggle on a personal level. That combination of crime-solving and personal struggles is bound to keep readers engaged throughout the novel. Vera and Dani aren’t the only complex characters, though; the villain of the novel is also well-developed and doesn’t exist within a moral vacuum. He is both incredibly philanthropic and unignorably corrupt. These contrasting character traits add a lot of depth to the story as his motivations are realistic, and his actions are appropriately condemnable.
TANGLED LIES is a well-written, solid, female-centric crime novel crime novel with a thought-provoking plot and a suitably vile villain. Its characters, conflict and pacing are perfectly calibrated to keep readers on the edge of their seats from the first page to the last.
~Stephani Hren for IndieReader