This stand alone murder mystery from the writing duo Nicci French was an entertaining read. At times darkly funny, sometimes almost farcical, it is the tale of a middle age married woman, Neve Connolly, who is summoned to the London flat of her lover, Saul, by a text, only to find him horribly murdered. To avoid being framed and to save her marriage she tries to cover up her affair but gradually finds herself telling more and more lies to the police, her family, her friends, even Saul's wife. As the web becomes more tangled she realises she needs to work out who killed him and why she was summoned to the flat that morning.

The premise is actually quite good as mother of three Neve is engaged in an affair with her boss Saul.Never has been married to Fletcher for twenty years. But she's also been having an affair with her boss. She gets a text message to meet him at his Covent Garden flat, but when she gets there, hes dead. His heads been caven in. In a blind panic, she scrubbed a the flat clean to erase any trace of her being there. Going out of her mind with worry, Neve decides to try and find out herself who had murdered Saul. The Lying Room is a return to their roots, and oh boy, is it a good one... With its terrifying premise - how easy it is for an ordinary woman to find herself faced with evil - The Lying Room isn't merely a return to the form of Nicci French's earlier chillers - it's even better' By the mid-nineties Sean had had two novels published, The Imaginary Monkey and The Dreamer of Dreams, as well as numerous non-fiction books, including biographies of Jane Fonda and Brigitte Bardot. It's Nicci French perfection - which, as we all know, is the best kind of perfection. So, so gripping and brilliantly clued'

In the midst of all of this, Neve is having an affair with a man named Saul. We never really get to meet Saul as he makes his first on-stage appearance in the form of a murdered corpse. Neve discovers his rapidly cooling body in the apartment he maintains when she responds to a text, apparently from him, that asks her to meet him as soon as she can. Neve attempts to remove every trace of herself from the crime scene in an effort to conceal her presence and her illicit relationship with him. She feels as if she is forgetting something, even as she tries to return to her normal life. In the short time, between the phone call and Neve arriving at the apartment, Saul has been murdered, and as she looks at the dead body with the murder weapon beside him, she realises there are traces of her all over the flat. The dilemma is tantalisingly balanced – should she report the murder to the police and explain her involvement with Saul and deal with all the family repercussions that will inevitably flow. Or clean the flat to remove all traces of her and pretend she was never there or involved with him. What had started as an affair had become death and she was at the centre of it, along with an unknown killer, who may or may not know her involvement with Saul. We learn of Neve’s secret as the book opens. In fact, it’s not something of which she’s particularly ashamed. And her concern about any fallout centres more around destabilising the recovery of her oldest child, Mabel – who’s overcome drug addiction and depression – than anything else. DCI Hitching leads the hunt for the murderer and every lie Neve tells just leads to more complications. The suspects mount and the finger of suspicion is getting closer to home.

You know a book's gripping when you sneak away at any opportunity to read it. Meticulously plotted, psychologically astute' Tension-filled, addictive and taut, with beautifully-drawn characters I won't forget. Nicci French just gets better and better’ Laura Marshall, bestselling author of Friend Request She instantly decides that the best course of action is to cover up their relationship and completely scrub the place clean - inadvertently hiding any evidence. In the early eighties she taught English Literature in Sheffield, London and Los Angeles, but moved into publishing in 1985 with the launch of Women's Review, a magazine for women on art, literature and female issues. All in all, if I hadn’t committed to reading and reviewing this free advanced review copy, it would now be sitting on my DNF shelf. I can’t express how disappointed I feel. It gets one star, because, you know, I have to give it something. I usually try and finish any review on a positive note, so here goes … I love the cover and the title!

I initially approached THE LYING ROOM with some trepidation. Coming on the heels of the Frieda Klein series, it seemed that the masterful husband-and-wife team known as Nicci French would have trouble composing an encore. I should not have worried. This is an enthralling and addicting novel full of characters who readers will recognize from their own lives and situations that make it more of a cautionary tale than simple entertainment. Before continuing… is it just me? I assumed Nicci French was a singular author! I had no idea it was a husband and wife writing duo, Nicci Gerard and husband Sean French. Who doesn’t just love that!💖 We’re then introduced to an array of characters. In addition to Neve’s family – (she has two sons as well as Mabel) and her husband Fletcher, there are three work colleagues with whom Neve’s been friends since University.What a roller coaster of a novel! Fast-paced, the novel depicts a woman on the edge. Neve's panic, tension and stress were palpable. You find yourself reading with a lump in your throat waiting for the axe to fall... Lies, compounded by more lies... so many that she barely remembers what the truth is herself. Unable to sleep, eat, or function, she finds herself trying to act 'normally' with a house full of people who unexpectedly descend upon her home. A home already chaotic, made farcical with the extra people. and don't forget to feed the guinea pig, Neve... Neve, the guinea pig? Neve, YOU NEED TO FEED THE GUINEA PIG -- I really thought there was going to be a vital clue hiding in the guinea pig hutch but nope, just feeding the guinea pig, nothing to see here, thankunext.)