Review: BEAUTIFUL LIES by Lisa Unger

Mystery/Suspense

Broadway, 2006

384 pages  $14.00

Lisa Unger has written a couple of more books since Beautiful Lies, her first, which I just finished for my book club. Both Publisher's Weekly and Booklist starred their glowing reviews of Beautiful Lies, so I feel a bit petty in offering anything less. But let me be clear, first of all: I was eager to finish the book; it held my interest; it was a great summer read. But.

Backing up: The heroine of this novel, Ridley Jones, is a more-or-less happy freelance writer living in New York's East Village. Never mind the sour grapes here, that yours truly would've liked to have had the cash to do just that instead of being reduced to an illegal studio in Long Island City back in the day. But then, yours truly didn't have the benefit of a hefty inheritance from a deceased family friend to help pay the bills. Ridley does.

Her life is turned upside down when her photo appears in the newspaper and she starts receiving notes from a man who claims to be her father. She's already got a father, thanks, and a mother, who raised her in comfort and love. But Ridley starts to see the holes in her family's story as she falls deeper and deeper into a twisted tale of deception. Suddenly people start stalking Ridley, even trying to kill her, and she can't figure out who to trust: her sweet parents? her mysterious new lover? her memories of dear Uncle Max, who left her a big wad of cash? The pages start flying by as the reader races to catch up with Ridley and sort the truth from the lies.

So it's a great summer read, as I said. If I was disappointed, it was only because I felt the writer could have tightened her prose a little--maybe given us a bit less detail on lover Jake's ripped abs, maybe not repeated some points that I'd remembered just fine by myself. The point of view is first-person friendly. In other words, it's as if you the reader are sitting in Starbucks while the author tells the story, injecting phrases like, "you know what I mean?" and "wouldn't you feel this way, too?" Maybe I do know what she means, and I would feel this way, but I kept thinking the writing had more potential than that. The Epilogue makes some interesting points about the way our lives can change in the blink of an eye over the smallest of choices that we make. I liked that; I liked the opening, with its taught suspense and well-turned phrases. And I liked the rest of the book, too. I just felt that writer's confidence give way a few times, as if she were afraid I the reader was losing my way and she had to pop in with her Mapquest directions.

I will definitely look for more Lisa Unger books, however. Great fun, great suspense, and I suspect in later books that the flashes of elegance in the prose became more the rule than the exception.