4.5 stars.

Part psychological thriller and part mystery, Crooked Little Lies is a suspense-laden novel by Barbara Taylor Sissel. A chance encounter with an eccentric young man who later vanishes plunges lead protagonist Lauren Wilder into a perplexing and confusing search for answers about his disappearance.

Lauren's recovery from a horrible accident has been slow and arduous and while mostly healed, she is still troubled by the lingering effects of a brain injury. She is frustrated by the ongoing memory problems that continue to crop up and although she has overcome her addiction to pain killers, her family still finds it difficult to trust her. A wrong turn puts her in the path of Bo Laughlin, a man in his early twenties whose unconventional lifestyle makes him vulnerable to being taken advantage of. When he disappears, Lauren is compelled to search out Bo's sister Annie Beauchamp and the two women track down leads they uncover during their search for the missing man.

While Bo is only briefly mention at the beginning of the story, his presence is keenly felt throughout the investigation. While at first it appears his life is an open book, Annie and Lauren uncover the bits and pieces that he kept hidden. Although nothing nefarious is discovered, these unknown associations and tidbits reveal facets of his personality and day to day life that add to the heartbreak of his disappearance. His intelligence and kindheartedness are often overlooked due to his eccentricities and these unexpected revelations create a well-rounded, three dimensional character that is easy to care about.

Lauren has overcome incredible odds in the nearly two years since her terrible fall and although she still deals with a little pain from her physical injuries, it is her memory issues that continue to be an ongoing problem. Her memories are sometimes confusing and she occasionally experiences difficulty remembering the details of daily life. She is easily distracted and forgetful which leads to some very stressful confrontations with her husband Jeff and their kids, Drew and Kenzie. Her family's trust is fragile and they easily doubt her after her erratic behavior becomes eerily reminiscent of her recent drug addiction. As the situation intensifies, Lauren becomes paranoid and suspicious of her husband and sister and she has great difficulty distinguishing reality from her vivid dreams. Her fear, distress and concern are palpable and Lauren is a somewhat unreliable narrator because she cannot separate fact from fiction but this just makes her more sympathetic and appealing.

Annie is an equally likable character but she is a little abrasive as she tries to find out what happened to Bo. There is never any doubt that Annie deeply loves her stepbrother and as she sifts through the days leading up to his disappearance, she experiences guilt and doubt that she did not do enough to help him. Annie is quick to reject offers of help but she feels an instant connection to Lauren. The two pursue leads the police dismiss but disturbing information about Lauren's past and her associations with persons of interest in the case eventually raise Annie's suspicions.

Crooked Little Lies is a complex and riveting novel that has many surprising twists and turns. The storyline is compelling, well written and unique. The characters are brilliantly developed and their doubts and fears are believable and easy to relate to. Barbara Taylor Sissel expertly builds the suspense surrounding Bo's disappearance to a fever pitch and the novel's conclusion is dramatic and rather shocking. An excellent mystery with a strong psychological element that I highly recommend to fans of the genre. ( )

at 27% I'm calling this one. I absolutely cannot finish this. One part of the story is focusing on Lauren who is recovering from a brain injury and an addiction. This is not appeasing at all. It is very dramatic to be considered a psychological thriller. I'm definitely not intrigued enough to drag through. It's taken me weeks just to get to 27% ( )

Un buon giallo, la storia è originale e i personaggi sono accattivanti. Non è un thriller ma la lettura è avvincente. ( )

A Kindle First selection. Finally a Kindle First Selection that lives up to my expectations. I thought it was going to be a drama, and it WAS A DRAMA! There were a couple of times in the book that it hinted at something supernatural being behind the events that were occurring, but thankfully it didn’t turn into a horror story at any point. The story certainly has lots of twists and turns and keeps you guessing until the end. I would put this up there with a Mary Higgins Clark novel. The story revolves around two characters Lauren Wilder, who had a traumatic brain injury and as a result an opiate addiction and Bo Laughlin, a young man who seems to be on the Autism spectrum who disappears shortly after a run in with Lauren. ( )

In this Amazon freebie, a middle-aged mother, still healing from a horrific injury two years ago, begins to doubt her memory and herself as her recollection of a young man's disappearance doesn't fit with the evidence presented by the police.

Lauren and her husband are in the salvage business. For a fee, they deconstruct decrepit barns, dilapidated houses, and other unwanted buildings. They then sell the beautiful furnishings and structures that survive. On one fateful day, Lauren climbed up the bell tower of an old church to disconnect the bell. A bat flew at her, she panicked, fell, shattered several bones and sustained severe brain damage. In the aftermath, she developed an addiction to Oxycontin. She's mostly recovered now and off the Oxy, but she still has momentary lapses in her memory. The Oxy addiction is still a sore spot with her husband and children.

One day, as Lauren is driving downtown, she gets off at the wrong exit, nearly hitting a young man who's walking in the road. She pulls over to get herself together and make sure he's okay. The young man introduces himself as Bo Laughlin, and she realizes that he's not all there. She offers to help him, and when he declines, she calls the police for a welfare check. The same day, he disappears. Lauren is the last person who saw him alive, and evidence mounts that she had a hand in his disappearance. Lauren doesn't think that she had anything to do with it, can't imagine that she did, but she knows that her memory is faulty, and she can't deny the connection when she finds hidden packets of Oxy and Bo's belongings turn up in her mud room.

It sounds really interesting, right? And I can totally get into a story with an unreliable narrator, if it's done right. Unfortunately, this was not done right. As a narrator, Lauren oversteps unreliable and heads right into awful. She grossly misinterprets the intentions of her family and friends, to the point that it's almost comical. For example, her sister expresses concern for Lauren's well-being, and Lauren accuses her of trying to get her children taken away.

Lauren firmly stands by her memories, then folds at the slighest pressure from her husband. She doesn't trust her husband, then believes every word he says. She accuses her husband of planning to kill himself or leave her, then says that she knows he would never do either. She's a walking contradiction, and not in any way that seems believable given her medical condition.

We also get a very odd friendship blooming between Lauren and Annie, Bo's stepsister, mostly because Lauren evidently reminds Annie of her late mother. I understand that Annie is looking for a mother's comfort through the whole situation (Bo and her stepfather are the only family she has), but it seems so odd that she would turn to a virtual stranger, and the last one to see her brother alive -- a suspect in his disappearance, at that.

I figured out what was happening early on in this book, and the amount of time that goes by, the amount of unexplained contradictions it takes, the actual confrontations Lauren faces before someone has to explain to her what's happened -- it's all too much. The reveal at the end is not shocking, it's boring. As I said, the idea is a good one. It's just the execution that suffered.

I received a free copy of this book through Amazon Prime's Kindle First program. ( )