One Perfect Lie - Lisa Scottoline (Review)

One Perfect Lie by Lisa Scottoline
Genres: Mystery
Publication date: April 11th 2017
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Format: ebook, 384 pages
How I got it: Netgalley to provide an honest review
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
My rating: 4/5 

A handsome stranger moves to the small Pennsylvania town of Central Valley, and his name is Chris Brennan. He’s applying for a job as a teacher and varsity baseball coach at the local high school, and he looks perfect, on paper. But his name is an alias, his resume is false, and everything about him is a lie. And he has a secret plan - for which he needs a pawn on the baseball team.

Susan Sematov loves her younger son Raz, the quirky and free-spirited pitcher of the team. But Raz’s adored father died only a few months ago, and the family is grief-stricken. Secretly, Raz is looking to fill the Daddy-shaped hole in his heart.

Heather Larkin is a struggling single mother who’s dedicated to her only son Justin, the quiet rookie on the team. But Justin’s shy and reserved nature renders him vulnerable to attention, including that of a new father-figure.

Mindy Kostis is the wife of a busy surgeon and the queen bee of the baseball boosters, where her super-popular son Evan is the star catcher. But she doesn’t realize that Evan’s sense of entitlement is becoming a full-blown case of affluenza, and after he gets his new BMW, it’s impossible to know where he’s going – or whom he’s spending time with.

The lives of these families revolve around the baseball team – and Chris Brennan. What does he really want? How far will he go to get it? Who among them will survive the lethal jeopardy threatening them, from the shadows?

Enthralling and suspenseful, One Perfect Lie is an emotional thriller and a suburban crime story that will keep readers riveted to the shocking end, with killer twists and characters you won’t soon forget.

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My thoughts:

This book follows Chris Brennan who has just moved into a small Pennsylvania town to be a high school teacher and baseball coach.   The beginning of the story is told through Chris’s POV and we are made to think he is an unreliable narrator.  The story evolves and we then get the POV of three mothers of boys on the baseball team.   Each mother is going through a difficult time in their life and making some life changes.

The author does a great job with this story.  We originally are introduced to Chris who seems to be hiding something that I just couldn’t put my finger on.   You can tell as you were reading something was adding up, but it was hard to figure out exactly what wasn’t adding up as the clues where going off in several directions.

It is a story about an event that could happen, everything in the story seems very plausible.  I found myself questioning a lot of the characters in the book.  I enjoyed how the characters interreacted with one another and I enjoyed getting everyone’s thought pattern since no one else was even curious about Chris and his motives. 

Chris develops into the main character in the book.  I enjoyed getting to hear about his life and how he ended up where he was today.  We get to see how his career is the most important aspect of his life and that he has been thinking maybe he wants more, but when should more come to him.

The three mother's in the story are each going through a challenging time in their lives.  I did enjoy getting their perspectives on what was going on with their sons.  The stories were mostly focused on being the best mother for their own son. 

The story takes a lot of twists and turns and towards the end I was completely hooked.  I wanted to know what was going to happen and how all the pieces fit together.  We get the background information for a good portion of the book, but once the actions starts it keeps on rolling.

I would suggest this as a nighttime read.  I did enjoy reading the story, but I found some natural stopping points that I was able to put the book down and come back to it.

I received a copy of this book from Netgally to provide an honest review.  This does not affect my opinion of this book. 

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About the Author

Lisa Scottoline is the New York Times bestselling author and Edgar award-winning author of 28 novels, including her latest, ONE PERFECT LIE, which releases in April 2017. Her previous emotional thriller, MOST WANTED, has been optioned for a TV series. Lisa also co-authors a bestselling series of humorous memoir with her daughter, Francesca Serritella, which is based on their weekly Philadelphia Inquirer column titled "Chick Wit." These witty and hysterical books examine life from a woman's perspective, and the most recent book is, I'VE GOT SAND IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES. The first in the series, WHY MY THIRD HUSBAND WILL BE A DOG, has been optioned for TV. Lisa reviews popular fiction and non-fiction, and her reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Lisa has served as President of Mystery Writers of America and has taught a course she developed, “Justice and Fiction” at The University of Pennsylvania Law School, her alma mater. Lisa is a regular and much sought after speaker at library and corporate events. Lisa has over 30 million copies of her books in print and is published in over 35 countries. She lives in the Philadelphia area with an array of disobedient pets, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. 

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