Admission: I kept listening to this WWI – centered British mystery when I was distracted. I almost made a serious mistake! I almost decided not to finish it. There are so many fine books out there to read and so little time. But I decided to be fair to “The Good Liars” and to start over and pay more attention. I am so glad I did.
The Good Liars has the feel of a retro-locked room mystery at times, with several members of a less wealthy than thy used to be family. The residents of Darkwood include Morris,, a not quite all better from severe shell shock veteran who inherited the property because the oldest son, Hugo, died in the war. Ida, Morris’s wife is gorgeous and has notable regret about her choice of marriage. With the death of her father-in-law followed by Hugo’s death, they had double death tax duty to pay and her expectation of a life of ease is not being met. Morris’s best fried from back in their school days, Victor, has lived with the family for years. The reasons are unclear, but he is the take charge guy, the fixer when things go wrong. Then, there’s the youngest, Leonard, who has lost two legs and the use of his left arm in the war, depressed, suicidal and cared for at home because Morris insists. Ida, spoiled and selfish and beautiful cannot understand why it is unacceptable to send Leonard away, but when she finally finds a new housekeeper willing to work for the meager wages she can offer, things start to look up. Sarah, the new housekeeper was an army nurse and can cook and clean with a kind and pleasant manner. She brings some light to the household. And then they receive a visit from a detective/inspector about the disappearance and likely death of a 17 year old local boy. Jimmy disappeared six years earlier., the day before Morris and Leonard were setting off with the regiment Hugo already joined. It was a local regiment, full of townspeople.
As the police begin to investigate newly received clues about the boy’s disappearance, we get to know the family well. Do we like them? Each member seems complex. Both sympathetic and problematic. They talk about various things related to the missing boy and terrible experiences in the war that both horrify them and make them very dependent on one another. Morris is reliving some nightmares. Leonard wants to kill himself. Victor is there to take care of … who? There’s an African Parrot, a candlestick telephone, a phonograph, gas lights and electricity in their hodgepodge postwar existence in rural Great Britain.
The atmosphere is thick as a knife, Yet this is not gothic, nor a horror story. It has ghost story aspects with all the death they have experienced in the short time before they went to war and returned. Parents died. 23 people in the small town died at war. Good Liars is beautifully written and the narrator, Kristin Atherton was fabulous. She captures the various personalities in the voices, even the lisp of a police sergeant who only has half a face, with the other half covered in a metal mask. That sent me down a rabbit hole reading about these prosthetic masks for disfigured soldiers, developed in part by sculptors. Look up pictures. They were pretty well done.
This was a well plotted novel and pretty much everyone felt like a suspect before anything even happened. Their inner thoughts reveal character more than information and so it’s fair to say that everyone is a good liar. Great plot. Great characters. Wonderful writing. I’m so glad I listened to this. And I commend it to you.
They Called me Bookworm 