My Review of Once a Liar by AF Brady

My Review:

I loved this book, would highly recommend it without a moment's hesitation or qualification, and am already looking forward to AF Brady's next novel. Hopefully it's soon.

Brady puts us firmly in Peter Caine's, aptly Biblical name, skin and it's an uncomfortable place to be ... the man is soulless and prides himself upon being so, he represents the reprehensible elite in New York who can afford to hire him and considers himself to have it all. At times there are nods to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and the monster within, but mostly I was reminded of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray. It is as if Brady has expertly taken Gray's character traits and transported him from Victorian London to present day Manhattan. A life exempt from personal consequences makes him invincible, or so he thinks ...

As the blurb reveals: Caine is a prime suspect in the murder of his former lover Charlie Doyle. This does not happen early in the narrative as one would expect, Brady tempts us with nugget of information so as we can wait to see if Caine gets his comeuppance, and try and guess from where it might come. The unreliable narrator is torture for the reader, and genius of Brady, we know that Caine is a liar and we therefore cannot trust him anymore than the people who know him cannot either. Everyone that he has come into contact with, with the exception of the sleazebags he has helped get acquitted, has reason to wish him ill, leaving too many suspects but I thoroughly enjoyed weighing up each character and trying to guess who it was and why. 

Caine's past should help the reader feel sorry for him but Brady makes sure that we don't. I often found myself aghast by his comments and behaviour yet he is so much more than a pantomime villain. 

Finally: Philip Larkin's This Be The Verse is something to refresh your memory of after you have read this excellent novel as it's very apt, you'll see why!