Jan Turk Petrie has quietly made her way into my list of favourite authors. Reading this latest of her novels, I found myself thinking of Deborah Moggach and there isn’t, for me, any greater compliment than that. This is the first Petrie book with a contemporary setting – everything else has been historical or, as in the case of the Eldísvík series, set in the future. The Truth in a Lie follows a path that has been trodden elsewhere – in fact, it’s one of the staples of fiction – where what people do is influenced by something in their past about which we receive plenty of hints, but which only becomes clear in the final stages. What marked this book out for me was the sheer skill with which what could have been a hackneyed tale is told. Jan Turk Petrie is a writer at the top of her game and the only further comment I have to make is: Read This Book.

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