One Little Lie

Our Review

One Little Lie is the second book I have read by Sam Carrington, I loved Saving Sophie when I read it so I was really looking forward to reading this.

One Little Lie is about two mothers who have lost their son. Deborah’s son was killed four years ago. Alice’s son is in prison for killing him.

Deborah would give anything to have her son back, and Alice would do anything to right her son’s wrongs.

In order to do this, Alice has started a support group for parents with troubled children. But as it grows she finds out how easy it is for one little lie to spiral out of control.

The book begins on the 19th March 2011 in Crown Court where they are discussing the murder of Sean Taylor.

“The young man in the sock was standing very still – like a shop dummy, frozen in position by the person who put it there. Unmoved by proceedings…How could this unremarkable eight-year-old have caused this much devastation?”

From the beginning it is made clear that there is more to the murder than meets the eye.

“He deserved what was coming to him. Didn’t he? A lifetime in prison. A life for a life. But he wasn’t the only one who needed to be punished.”

Four years later and Alice has set up her own support group in an effort to alleviate some of the guilt she feels at not doing more to prevent her son from becoming a murderer. She has also started seeing a therapist.

“It’s always the mother who gets blamed. Something she did, when the child was growing up; some sort of neglect during that delicate stage of development, lack of attention, lack of love, lack of stimulation. The list is endless. Who even decides this stuff? Who has the right to question the parenting skills of others? Probably some stuck up university toff. What do they know about parenting?

I did my best:

Or is that another lie I tell myself every day? “

Connie, her therapist is recovering from a recent professional setback and is reluctantly drawn into returning to the scene of her shame. She has been asked to return to the prison to complete a psychological assessment on some of the inmates. Connie is reluctant but agrees because she needs the money.

Before long she realises that she has an ethical dilemma because one of the people she is meant to be assessing is Alice’s son Kyle. Against her better judgement she decides to see them both and becomes drawn into a dangerous situation when she begins to suspect Kyle wasn’t the only one involved in the murder.

One Little Lie is written from the point of view of several characters each with their own secrets. Sometimes this style of writing can make it hard to follow but I didn’t find this to be the case.

I didn’t realise when I requested this book that it was not a stand alone and contained some of the characters from Bad Sister, a book I haven’t read.

This book was highly readable but I would have benefited from having read the previous book.

Our Final Rating...

Sat, 21st July 2018