Fatal Lies

By: Andrew Cunningham

Narrated by: Greg Hernandez

Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's Summary

Daisy Leduc was forgotten and alone. That was just how she wanted it. But when she is discovered stabbed to death in a dusty little Texas town, it plunges Del Honeycutt and best-selling mystery author Sabrina Spencer into a 30-year-old mystery involving murder, hidden identities, dangerous family secrets, political intrigue, and a long-forgotten serial killer.

Daisy’s estranged daughter, who hasn't seen her mother in years, receives a package sent shortly before her mother's death. A note instructs her to immediately contact Sabrina and give her the package if Daisy is killed. But why Sabrina? The temptation to uncover the answer leads Del and Sabrina on a dangerous quest to find Daisy's killer. When they discover Daisy, under a different name, supposedly died 30 years earlier, they find themselves squarely in the cross hairs of killers whose deadly secrets lie in Daisy's mysterious past.

By the author of the Amazon best-seller Wisdom Spring.

©2016 Andrew Cunningham (P)2018 Andrew Cunningham

Secrets, Lies, and Murder

This second book in Andrew Cunningham’s Lies series brings us back to Del and Sabrina, who are now firmly seated in coupledom, and what a pair they make. The dynamic between these two is one of my favorite things about this series. Sabrina is certainly the tougher of the two, and Del knows it and is completely okay with it. The story is told from Del’s perspective and is a mix of sarcasm, realism, and a bit of self-deprecation.
Fatal Lies starts out with a gripping scene that puts you on the edge of your seat with a rising tension, right up to the murder. Once Del and Sabrina get involved, it’s a wild ride to the finish. This one does get a bit convoluted with the story branching this way and that. However, no matter how busy things get, Andrew Cunningham writes in a way that it’s all easy to keep straight, and he does an excellent job of bringing it all together in the end.
Greg Hernandez is back for the voice of Del, and by this second book, I can’t imagine Del sounding any other way. Hernandez has the voice and tone of a storyteller, and he does an excellent job with this one. He keeps each character’s voice distinct without falling into a high-pitched falsetto, and I’m certainly thankful for that. I will say that there were a number of glitches in the audio that sounded a bit like a CD skipping, but that’s an audio quality issue and not anything to do with Hernandez’s reading. On that note, I will say that Greg Hernandez doesn’t exactly give a performance. It’s more like being read to, which is basically what it is. As I said, he voices Del quite well, and I liked sitting back and just enjoying the listen.
All in all, Fatal Lies is a good addition to the series, and at this point, I’ve become invested in these characters. I can’t wait to see what new kinds of messes they can get into next.

Layers of mystery unravel in action-packed story

Author Andrew Cunningham starts Fatal Lies with a prologue that places readers in a richly described scene. We’re introduced to a character, easily imagined, and provided her somewhat heavy back-story -- and there's good reason we’re uncomfortable: BAM! A horrible crime is committed, and we’re off to the races as a series of mysteries reveal themselves.

As with the first book in this series, All Lies, in Fatal Lies, I enjoy the literary angle to the story with main character Sabrina being a famous mystery writer. Reading about her encounters with her fans (authors are rock stars, after all) is amusing, and especially appealing is that Sabrina is benevolent and shares her earnings freely for good causes. In Fatal Lies, readers get better acquainted with Sabrina as more of her past is revealed. She’s really growing on me as a smart, tough, quick-thinking woman who gets things done in a take-no-prisoners way.

Main character Del, Sabrina’s boyfriend and our primary narrator, is taking a stab at writing, too, and silently corrects people’s grammar mistakes. He is smitten with Sabrina, and hearing his thoughts and feelings when he sees/smells/touches her is sweet. Sabrina clearly wears the pants in this relationship, which is a good thing since Del frequently refers to wetting his when they get in tight and deadly situations. His inner monologue is great.

The author sprinkles information so that readers get a good bring-to-date about the prior book, making Fatal Lies work well as a stand-alone. While characterization is well-done (oh, the bad guys that Cunningham writes! Loathe them so!), a few things caught my ear this time that took away from the story. There are some unnecessary repeated details (lots of back to the hotel and taking showers), unnecessary F-bombs (though other profanity is scene appropriate), and some awkward sentences (“It would soon begin showing signs of dusk.”). I suspect there are some punctuation errors given how the narrator read some sentences – more on that coming – but it’s impossible to tell. Either way, some additional editing is probably in order.

“We just prayed that Lubbock would make it all worth it. It wouldn’t. It was a dusty town -- maybe all towns in Texas are dusty... I had a feeling though that for my first foray into Texas, I hadn’t picked the garden spot of the state.”

A bit of the story takes place in Lubbock and in “a little town in Texas called Spur. I looked it up. It’s in the middle of nowhere.” These are two places with which I am well acquainted and have a fondness for, so I am a little defensive and cry foul. However, I give the author credit for mentioning why Spur has character “of sorts” with its tiny house population and giant sculpture. The Texas characters are mostly cast as uneducated country-bumpkins, but alas, I must admit we have our share.

Sabrina and Del travel beyond Texas and go all over the country to try to get pieces of what they think is one puzzle to complete. In reality, they are working several puzzles to solve some mysteries and uncover truths they don’t even know are buried. Fatal Lies yanks you back and forth: crisis, crisis averted, crisis, crisis resolved. Repeat. You’ll think you can catch your breath but then WHAM, something new comes into the picture. At times, the story gets quite convoluted, but the tangles get worked out, and readers have lots of ah-ha moments as a satisfying conclusion is reached. I’ll absolutely be reading book three, Vegas Lies.

ABOUT THE NARRATION: Greg Hernandez returns to narrate this second book in the series, and he has his rhythm with these characters. He is more consistent in delivering emotion with his narration, and happily, Hernandez doesn’t attempt a Texas accent or falsetto female voices. His even pacing and delivery allowed me to listen at regular speed. My only criticism is that at times, it sounds like punctuation is being ignored and appropriate pauses aren’t taken, which creates listening run-ons. Without seeing the text of the book, I don’t know if this happens because the punctuation is missing, but it sounds unnatural.

Thank you to Audiobookworm Promotions and Mr. Hernandez for providing me an audio download in exchange for my honest opinion – the only kind I give.

Mystery, mayhem and intrigue aplenty

As the second book in the series it was easy to get into the swing of things as the story picked up after Del and Sabrina's "adventures" in Brazil. Being a mystery author, it was not unrealistic to believe that Sabrina might write about that experience, but it was good to see Del having a hand in it too.
This book involved looking back at Sabrina's time in prison when a fellow prisoner - Daisy - was killed, and left a package for Sabrina. Collecting the package kicked off a series of events in which Del and Sabrina were in constant danger, being followed, arrested, and ultimately lured into a mine by Daisy's killer.
Running alongside that mystery was the case of the Taunting Man, a serial killer whose murderous ways seemed connected to Daisy's family. (Daisy was Lucinda Holt, whose wealthy family owned a mining enterprise, and from whom Daisy ran away as a teenager some 30 years ago, never to be reunited with them again)
There were twists and turns in the story that held me rapt, even if sometimes these were a little far-fetched. The romance between Del and Sabrina developed and blossomed throughout and I learnt lots about them as people, more about Sabrina to be honest. Del, through whom the story was told, insisted he was uninteresting in his true self-deprecating style from start to finish.

Greg Hernandez was once again the narrator for the audio version, and as before he delivered a fabulous story. I particularly loved Del's mini inner outbursts and the sarcasm dripped beautifully.
I received the audio version of this book from the AudioBookWorm as part of a blog tout. This review is 100% my own honest opinion.

Fatal Lies

Fatal Lies is the second installment from the Lies Mystery Thriller series. Andrew Cunningham once again takes his readers on a thrilling ride. It was full of twists and turns that I could not have predicted would happen. Del and Sabrina team up to solve a 30 year old mystery murder. I was intrigued with this story. I was left guessing as to who did it until the end.
I loved that Greg Hernandez was the narrator for the audio version of Fatal Lies. He has a great voice to add to the story. He is very talented.
I am giving Fatal Lies four and a half stars. I highly recommend this book for readers who enjoy a great suspense filled mystery.
I received the audio version of this book from the publisher. This review is 100% my own honest opinion.

Fatal Lies

Full of twists and turns,some you never quite figure out!A really good read! I look forward to more in this series. Greg Hernandez was a very good narrator.
I was given this book by the narrator,author or publisher free for an honest review.

Another great mystery

I enjoyed Sabrina and Dell's high-stakes journey to solve the murder of Sabrina's friend. It kept me guessing until the end. :) Onward to the next one!

great

what a great story what great mystery I loved the book very much it was very interesting yeah it was a stressful in times but in a good way I liked it quite much and the narrator was a big part of it
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

Loved This One!

Don't miss this wonderful mystery! Concise and well written, beautifully narrated, it gets full marks. A secret key that leads to a hunt for something so important one is willing to kill. But what is it? The characters are very likable, the path they take is clear and entertaining, even while complex. Just a pleasure to listen to with Greg Hernandez narrating. All round hit to me.

You can find my full review at Mystery Suspense Reviews. This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review. I can't wait to read more in the series!

Engrossing!

Fatal Lies by Andrew Cunningham pulled me in from the very beginning. I loved how the author had so many surprising twists in the book. This book is original and full of the unexpected in each chapter. The characters were well developed, and Greg Hernandez did a great performance. He was able to perform the characters with distinguishable voices, and I could hear exactly who was speaking. The imagery in this book is really well done along with the mystery. I am looking forward to the next book in this series. This is a standalone listen. Without giving away spoilers, the ending is fantastic.

Loved it!

I loved the first book in this series and although I had other books queued up prior to this download, I put them all aside in favor of jumping back into this story. It was six hours well-spent!!

Del and Sabrina are embroiled in another multi-faceted mystery - one that took them all over parts of the US and back again. There was a cadre of bad guys trying to get in their way and it was never quite clear if they would survive. There were decades old lies that kept tripping them up and the final whodunnit was a big ole' "Whoa!!"

I very much enjoyed the narration as well. Male narrators sometimes struggle to create believable female characters but not Hernandez. I liked that he didn't even attempt a falsetto but was still able to give Sabrina a separate voice.

I looked for book three but alas, it's not yet available. I can wait. Sorta.