Lie to Me

Starred review from July 17, 2017
Successful authors Ethan and Sutton Montclair, the married couple at the heart of this exceptional domestic thriller from bestseller Ellison (No One Knows), lead a relatively quiet life in Franklin, Tenn., where they each work on their respective books. Then Ethan wakes up one morning to discover a note from Sutton telling him that she needs some time away and doesn’t want him looking for her. Distraught, Ethan contacts Sutton’s mother and her friends, yet all of them claim not to know where she is. When Ethan finally decides to get the police involved in searching for Sutton, he falls under suspicion. Witnesses claim that Ethan physically abused Sutton and was even responsible for the death of their infant son. Might Ethan, emotionally devastated as he appears, be a psychopathic killer? Ellison keeps the suspense high with chapters from the point of view of someone very evil. The person responsible for Sutton’s disappearance remains a mystery right up to the surprising finale. This standalone may be Ellison’s best work to date. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group.

July 1, 2017
The life of a picture-perfect literary couple sours when the wife goes missing and suspicion immediately falls on the husband, exposing a home life that was anything but picturesque.From the outside, Ethan and Sutton Montclair live the writerly dream in Franklin, Tennessee: he's a renowned literary novelist with a sexy English accent (it should be noted that accents do not make a character) while she's a more commercial writer. He's also got a wandering eye that's gotten him into trouble before. When Sutton vanishes one morning, leaving everything behind, along with a note telling Ethan not to look for her, Ethan can't decide if she took off on her own accord or if something more sinister happened. Since the husband is always guilty, the police seem convinced early on that Ethan is responsible given the number of domestic disturbance calls to the house and the stress caused by the recent loss of the couple's baby. Ellison (No One Knows, 2016, etc.) divides the novel roughly in two, giving the first half of the narrative to Ethan, so by the time the reader gets to Sutton's version of events--many of which are so predictable as to read almost as parody--it's difficult to form an unbiased opinion of the characters or to know, or truly care, about their fates. The theme of "nothing is what it seems" is taken to expected extremes, with both the Montclairs carrying secrets which are meant to be sordid and harrowing but are instead somewhat banal in a thriller universe. Instead of a suspenseful peek into a crumbling marriage with a missing wife at the center, Ellison's latest devolves into a mishmash of well-worn tropes carried out by even more threadbare characters.

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August 1, 2017
Ethan Montclair, Hollywood handsome and blessed with a killer Brit accent, wrote literary novels until writer's block stalled him. He's married to Sutton, a Botticelli angel, carved of ivory, who writes pop novels that haul in the money. Is Ethan jealous? Most likely, and that's just one of the hurts that surface when Ethan finds a note from his wife. She's gone. Don't look for me. This overfilled, emotional, and immensely readable domestic thriller catalogs a marriage gone wrong. In lush prose divided into then and now chapters, we learn that Ethan may have killed the couple's child. A neighbor swears Ethan abused Sutton. He drank too much. They both did. Menacing phone calls and e-mails arrive after her disappearance, and a police computer whiz traces them back to Ethan. Police officer Holly Graham is the only one who senses something is wrong with the case the police are building, and her persistence exposes the Iago at the heart of the mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2017

Ellison knows how to deliver gripping psychological suspense, and this tale of a marriage disintegrating appears to echo Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. Sutton Montclair vanishes, and her husband, Ethan, deals with the aftermath. Is he a killer, or is something else going on entirely? Appearances can be deceiving, but Ellison's writing is not. [See Prepub Alert, 3/13/17.]

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August 1, 2017

Sutton and Ethan Montclair, beautiful and successful, appear to be the perfect couple. But beneath the picture-perfect exterior and behind closed doors, there are deep and active levels of ambivalence and manipulation, with each spouse trying to best the other at every turn. After a particularly dramatic episode, Sutton disappears, leaving a note that Ethan should not look for her. Is she setting her husband up for a fall, or did Ethan decide to sever his relationship with her permanently? Reminiscent of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, Ellison's (All the Pretty Girls) stand-alone is a suspenseful, twisty psychological thriller, told from Sutton's and Ethan's alternating perspectives, about an upwardly mobile yet amazingly dysfunctional couple. It is not particularly innovative beyond those points, but the narrative flows well between the two viewpoints, and readers will alternately hate and sympathize with each character. VERDICT Fans of Paula Hawkins, A.S.A. Harrison, Mary Kubica, and Karin Slaughter will want to add this to their summer reading list. [See Prepub Alert, 3/13/17.].--Nicole A. Cooke, GSLIS, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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April 1, 2017

Stepping away from police procedurals to focus more tightly on psychological suspense, the New York Times best-selling Ellison introduces us to seemingly happy couple Sutton and Ethan Montclair. In fact, they have big money worries and personal and professional grievances with each other, and when Sutton disappears--leaving behind a note saying not to look for her--Ethan is in big trouble. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.