This is How I Lied by Heather Gudenkauf

This Is How I Lied by Heather Gudenkauf

Five Stars
Oct. 2024

 

Heather Gudenkauf has written another entertaining read filled with a few jaw dropping twists that I didn’t see coming. When Maggie was only 15 years old she discovered the body of her best friend Eve. Maggie’s father was the chief of police at the time and worked tirelessly to solve the murder, but the case went cold. Twenty years later Maggie is now a detective in the same police station where her aged father once worked. New evidence has been found and the case reopened with Maggie leading the investigation. A twisted tale is told from all the main characters in a recounting of the timeline leading up to the murder. We hear from Eve herself as the details unroll in a timely and suspenseful way. Eve’s thirteen year old sister Nola is perceived in the community as off balanced, unpredictable and bullish. This reputation has only grown with time. Nola has a high level of intelligence, reading anatomy books far beyond her years as a child, and now is one of the area’s veterinarians. Nola lives with her mother in the same home as where Eve lived 20 years ago, but everything about their lives including their house is unclean, unkempt and a hoarder’s mecca. But that is not the only darkness in Nola’s world.

     At the time of Eve’s murder she was in a relationship with Nick. A bad relationship. Nick was obsessive and abusive, drawing me to consider him a suspect along with Eve’s own sister. Adding to the mix is Cam, a family man who is a bit too interested in young girls like Maggie and Eve. When Maggie takes on the reopened case she is seven months pregnant with a child she and her husband Shaun tried years to conceive. But the case takes yet another curve when upon reading the case file, Maggie discovers her own husband spent time with Eve on the day she died. Once again Gudenkauf creates a story with multiple suspects and a suspenseful plot. It is a satisfying and entertaining read. ~Kim Luke

Book blurb-
Everyone has a secret they’ll do anything to hide…

Twenty-five years ago, the body of sixteen-year-old Eve Knox was found in the caves near her home in small-town Grotto, Iowa—discovered by her best friend, Maggie, and her sister, Nola. There were a handful of suspects, including her boyfriend, Nick, but without sufficient evidence the case ultimately went cold.

For decades Maggie was haunted by Eve’s death and that horrible night. Now a detective in Grotto, and seven months pregnant, she is thrust back into the past when a new piece of evidence surfaces and the case is reopened. As Maggie investigates and reexamines the clues, secrets about what really happened begin to emerge. But someone in town knows more than they’re letting on, and they’ll stop at nothing to keep the truth buried deep.