I have never read anything by Lisa Gardner before. But when my life feels hectic and overwrought, my favorite genre for escape is a thriller. And when time is short, there is little better than a short story. Three Truths and A Lie is a story to be released in early January, and it is mesmerizing and stultifying and appropriately gory all at once. I came in from a long, twelve hour conference day, and read it the next night.
"All right. Let's begin."
"So you know the game, three truths and a lie? Most of the details of what I'm going to tell you will be the truth. One will be a lie."
And it is that line, of course, that compelled me to read this short story. Not that I wasn't intrigued by the premise: a wealthy man is found dead in a seedy hotel room, with his amputated leg in a bathtub filled with dry ice. How come? Who did it?
It's a detective story perfectly told, which makes me think I'll read another novel by Lisa Gardner soon. Oh, that we were all as clever as her heroine addressing an audience of writers with this particular plot.