So I was on Noelle Holten’s fab Crime Book Junkie blog recently! If you love unreliable narrators, amnesiacs and liars as much as me, then make sure you check out the whole post over at CBJ by clicking HERE or on one of the pics below. Enjoy!
Patrick Bateman in American Pyscho … Unnamed in Fight Club … Nick and Amy in Gone Girl … Classic Crime Fiction is filled with unreliable narrators and liars.
I love a story in which you’re not sure if the protagonist is telling the truth or not – either because they can’t remember, or because they may have an agenda, so are playing fast and loose with the truth! And it seems your average crime fiction reader is the same, because the genre is AWASH right now with unreliable narrators, amnesiacs and outright liars.
Check out my picks below – if you like the sound of them, click on the title/author links for my reviews (some spoilers) and make sure you join Crime Fiction Addict to chat more about crime fiction and share your own reviews with fellow members!
1) Claire in Mindsight by Chris Curran. Five years ago, Claire crashed her car, killing her father, her husband and one of her twin sons. She can’t remember the accident, but accepts her guilt – there’s no arguing with the drugs found in her system. Now she’s out of prison, she feels she has to face her past in order to reconnect with her remaining son. This book has strong themes of having to face your past in order to move on.
2) Anne in When She Was Bad by Tammy Cohen. Anne is clearly a learned woman in this book with lots of interesting ideas and background knowledge. Cohen weaves an intricate storyline here of office politics and backbiting that delves into the dark past of one of the characters. But which one?? Cohen is a master of suspense and does a really good job here of subverting our expectations.
3) Lillian in Wreckage by Emily Bleeker. This is a fantastic twist on the “stranded on a desert island’ motif – and it’s definitely no paradise! Joining the two main characters, Lillian and Dave, in present day when they’ve rejoined ‘normal’ life, a TV interviewer works hard to expose their lies about their lives on the island …
Read the REST of my Top 10 over at Noelle’s site, HERE or click the pic above!!
