Tell Me Lies

Just three books into what looks like being a stellar crime fiction career, J P Pomare has earned a reputation for delivering dark,

twist-laden psychological thrillers.

They’re smart, deftly plotted and narratively sophisticated – a legacy of Pomare’s early ‘‘literary’’ writing career, which he ditched in favour of the more lucrative and wider-read genre fiction.

His third book is no exception, and gets off to a cracking start. In the half-page prologue, an unnamed woman pushes a man under the wheels of a train as it pulls into Melbourne’s Flinders Station.

Tell Me Lies was originally released as an audible original earlier this year, and delivers another bracing journey into the darker impulses of the human psyche.

It’s a taut, entertaining thriller with a sting in its tail, which has clearly grown out of Pomare’s wide reading in psychology.

While In the Clearing had a counsellor as a minor character – a voice of reason in a book where truth and memory were constantly shifting – here Pomare gives a starring role to a psychologist.

Margot Scott has two teenage kids and a good/dull husband, runs a successful practice, and generally lives the Aussie dream. But we also learn that she’s prone to crossing the line with patients.

One is the child of a murderer, and has been kicked out of university for writing other students’ papers.

Another is a cutter with anxiety issues. Another is a social media moderator who’s exposed to graphic images every day as part of his job.

Scott seems a highly functional if rather cold presence, and at peace with her role in their lives.

‘‘Money can’t buy you happiness, or style – despite the efforts of the Louis Vuitton faithful – but it can buy you a good listener and sound psychological advice.’’

We get a peek into her comfortable upper-middleclass home life. And then – right after a rare marital coupling – the house catches fire.

Someone has lobbed a Molotov cocktail through a window, and left a graphic image on the doorstep.

Is this one of her clients’ handiwork, or is it one of her gamer son’s playing partners wreaking revenge?

It’s a compelling setup – and, like Pomare’s previous books, it’s a difficult book to write about without giving away key plot points. Just be ready for some surprises.

Pomare intersperses Scott’s first-person narrative with transcripts from a trial and the odd news account (readers familiar with his works will know how he redefines the ‘‘unreliable narrator’’ concept) – and just when you think you’ve figured it out, Pomare hits you with a chilling twist on the last page.

Reservations? Scott’s relationship with her demanding academic psychologist father, a man who ‘‘cuts right to the core’’ of her inadequacies, is a thread that could have been further explored – and Scott herself is a character some readers may find it hard to warm to.

However, things take a change of tone in its final third, where Pomare seems to be having fun writing an oldschool ride-past-your-stoppage-turner.

And good news for Pomare fans – the book also includes two chapters from his upcoming fourth novel, The Last Guests.

Let’s just say you may never want to stay at an AirBnb again!

This review was originally published by Kete at ketebooks. co.nz and is reproduced with permission.