The King of Lies by John Hart

Based on the title of this book, I should probably offer you a whopper of an explanation as to why I missed my last post and why this post is a day late. Alas, I am the king of nothing and will stick to the truth. My non-virtual life got in the way. Please accept my apologies. I promise I've been reading; I just haven't been telling you about it.

The King of Lies is John Hart's debut novel, released in 2006. It's a legal thriller and a mystery. I picked it up because Barnes and Noble offered it for $2.99 as a Nookbook. Overall, I enjoyed it, and I'll be buying Mr. Hart's other three novels. Having said that, reading The King of Lies reminding me a lot of my sister's FAVORITE part of my non-virtual life--my road rage. I love to travel, and I even like to roadtrip. I do not, however, like other drivers. Occasionally, my distaste for everyone else's driving will lead me to yelling, while I'm at the wheel, "GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

It's almost as effective as you think.

When I was reading The King of Lies, I found myself wanting to yell at the main character, "DON'T DO THAT!" It was a lot like yelling at the drivers of other cars. He couldn't hear me, and nothing I said was going to change the situation. I'm quite sure that the main character, Work Pickens, could have avoided his entanglement with the police if he had read (or watched) more police procedurals.

The book opens with Work finding out that his missing father's body has been found. As the truth about his father's death, and life, unfolds, Work's life unravels. His career, his marriage, and his relationship with his sister all begin to teeter on the brink of destruction. Part of the problem comes from his assumption that his sister killed his father. She, of course, thinks that Work did it.

We all know the problems with assumptions.

The siblings triggered something like my road rage when they had stupid, opaque conversations that only furthered their suspicions of each other. Work continued to incite my wrath by tampering with evidence because he wanted to protect his sister. Happily, even though Work made a couple of amateur and cliched moves of "people of interest" in cop shows, the book ended with a twist I didn't see coming. That twist, plus the reasonably well-developed characters kept me interested. Honestly, my road-rage reaction wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been so involved. Otherwise, I would have simply breezed through the book, too indifferent to the characters to react so strongly.

I liked this book, and I think most mystery readers will, too. Even if parts of the tale irked this King of the Road.

Here's the information from amazon.com.