This standalone thriller by Michael Robotham features some new characters who have not been in previous books. Cyrus Haven is a psychologist who works for the police as well as having his own practice. Evie is a teenager who has had a very tough and traumatic life. They meet because a fellow psychologist has asked if Cyrus will assess and help Evie. At the same time Cyrus is asked to help the police with a missing girl case. The girl is found dead early on in the book. The story follows the two threads. Sometimes this is from Cyrus's viewpoint and sometimes Evie, as Angel Face, is the narrator.

Evie is a "lie detector" or "truth wizard". She can almost always tell if someone is lying to her. This is something that has cropped up in previous books by this author so is obviously something he is interested in. Cyrus himself had a very traumatic childhood and so feels he can relate to Evie. However Evie may not see things the same way. The thread concerning the girl who died is a fairly straightforward investigation - though with a number of twists and turns as well.

One of the obvious questions is just how will these two threads intersect. This is one of my main issues with this book. I found that the meeting of the threads felt very engineered. I thought Evie was a very good character indeed. I would happily read another book that featured her. However my views on Cyrus are far more ambivalent. I didn't dislike him however I'm not sure he fully convinced me.

Allowing for those reservations I found this a compelling and easy read. Michael Robotham writes extremely well. Even a less good book from him is far more readable than some of books I see these days. Ultimately I enjoyed reading this a lot - my reservations about it are small. I certainly hope to read more of Robotham's work in the future.

What a brilliant book. This book has a fantastic story line, excellent characters and is just wonderful. I would highly recommend this book to anyone and I enjoyed it immensely.

Well I just loved, loved, loved this book it was my first Michael Robotham and I was totally hooked from the first page till the last. The book is told from two different points of view one from Evie an abused, abducted teenager who was found in hidden a secret room and from Cyrus a forensic psychologist who helps the police and who becomes involved with Evie when asked to assess her.
Running along with this we also have a police investigation into the rape and murder of another girl that Cyrus is assisting the police with and these two storylines make this book a real page turner that I just found impossible to put down. It’s brilliantly written and the characters of Evie and Cyrus feel so damn “real” and I would love to hear more from them in the future.
Michael Robotham I take my hat off to you (if I had one !!) it’s a terrific read and one not to be missed and I have no hesitation in giving it 5 stars.
My thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown book group UK, Sphere for giving me the chance to read the arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

Michael Robotham is an author who always delivers a strong story with great character and pace, this is no exception. Cyrus Haven is an interesting new character with an unusual history and a dilapidated home. Evie is a girl whose strength comes from the horrors of her past. The working relationship between the two develops as they untangle a murder. There are many twists and turns and a very surprising ending. Thank you to Michael Robotham, Little Brown and NetGalley for providing this ARC and a lot of pleasure.

This was an easy, quick read by the Australian ex-journalist and crime fiction author, Michael Robotham. As I was reading "Good Girl, Bad Girl", I thought that the plot would offer something innovative to the saturated genre but, unfortunately, an uninspired finale ruined the overall positive experience of this novel. Even though the prose is free-flowing and fluid -I highlighted many paragraphs in my Kindle device- the problem lies in the storyline and more specifically in its final conclusion.

The story revolves around a murder of a young teenage girl, Jodie, in Nottingham and the story's two main protagonists are Cyrus Haven, a criminal psychologist helping with the police investigation and Evie, an adolescent carrying a dark past and many secrets. Evie has a kind of supernatural power that allows her to be able to tell if another person is lying. She is a human lie detector machine who's never wide of the mark in her judgement. Cyrus, who becomes Evie's legal guardian, will attempt to use this special ability in order to learn the truth about Jodie's homicide.

The story is narrated by Cyrus' and Evie's points of view, something that gives "Good Girl, Bad Girl" a fast tempo while it offers the reader the chance to examine the thought process of two damaged, in their own particular ways, people who have to live fighting their memories from a distant but never forgotten past. I enjoyed those two characters and I found Evie to be well-drawn and three-dimensional, something that is not self-evident for the majority of the genre's works. Perhaps there will be some kind of follow-up as I believe that Robotham created the characters having in mind a new book series or something along those lines.

It should be noted that Michael Robotham is only the second Australian author, the first one was Peter Temple in 2007 for "The Broken Shore", to win the British Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for the best crime novel of the year with his novel "Life or Death" (2014). He was also awarded with other prestigious awards as the Australian Ned Kelly Award for Best Novel while he was a finalist for both Edgar and Barry Awards.

For the record, I have to say that my precise rating of this book would be a bit higher than 3 stars, closer to 3,5/5. I also would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free ARC of this title.

Good Girl, Bad Girl is a twisty and gritty thriller that hopefully will not be a standalone. These are characters you'll want more of. Robotham is excellent at writing unputdownable novels. Readers will have a hard time walking away to do even the most basic of tasks such as using the restroom or eating. Highly recommended to readers looking for the next favorite thriller.

This is a compelling read about trauma. The key character is that of Evie, who, following a traumatic incident, is in care and who has an uncanny knack of being able to identify when people are telling lies. Whilst there she meets a psychologist, Cyrus, the relationship between these two characters becomes entwined with a murder investigation.

It's a good read which maintains interest.

3*

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview.

Loved this book! Please let it not be a standalone! Great characters, a bit dubious practices from a psychologist (I am one so feel I can say that!) but in the interests of literacy licence it can be forgiven!

In ‘Good Girl’ Bad Girl’, Michael Robotham gives us two stories connected by Cyrus Haven, a psychologist attached to Nottingham’s police squad. Whilst working on the murder of ice-skating prodigy, Jodie Sheehan, he is also caught up in the life of ‘Angel Face’ or Evie Cormac who has been passed from fostering pillar to post, having been rescued from a murdered child abductor several years earlier. A ward of court, Evie is desperate for a taste of freedom. When the court postpones her entrance into the adult world, Cyrus agrees to foster her and begins to learn first-hand just how complicated Evie is. Smart, funny, uncompromising, fearful, dangerous and devious, her behaviour reminds us just how damaged this girl is. But is either of the titular labels accurate?
As Cyrus looks into Jodie’s world, he begins to appreciate that this wonder girl is not the perfect teenager that the press and her parents would have us believe. Why did she die? Who knows her secrets? Over the course of the novel Cyrus gradually pieces together the jigsaw and the final picture is tragic.
Both girls, so very different in upbringing and expectations, are neither good nor bad. Through Cyrus’s considerations, Robotham shows us just how important adult role models are and just how stifling parental expectations can be. The narrative is interspersed with Evie’s ruminations on the people she meets and the life she lives (and, delightfully, the songs she knows!) but we hear almost nothing of her life as an abused child. This is not only credible in that, understandably, she could be blocking such memories but it also encourages the reader to imagine – and that is far more powerful in this case than words on a page.
The author is particularly adept at dialogue between Cyrus and his interviewees, and it is moving to see how his relationship with the damaged Evie slowly develops over the course of the novel. Robotham’s understanding of a world in which fear is foremost, anger is quick to show and trust is rare is very convincing. Fans of his Joe O’Loughlin series will enjoy getting to know Cyrus Haven, past student of O’Loughlin, and may well hope that ‘Good Girl, Bad Girl’ is the first in a series featuring this new psychologist who, despite his own daemons, is a decent, generous, and sensitive man.
My thanks to NetGalley and Sphere for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

I’ve read all of Michael Robotham’s Joe McLoughlin thrillers so I was interested to see he’d written a new book about a forensic psychologist called Cyrus Haven.
Cyrus is a great character, damaged himself due to his own family background, Cyrus consults for the police and is called in to help when Jodie Sheehan, a teenager, is found murdered.
He is also asked to look into Evie, an extremely difficult teenager with huge problems who is being held in a secure children’s home and is petitioning to be released.
Cyrus and Evie seem to click, prompting Cyrus to try and find out more about her as she will not reveal her true name or background.
This is a compelling read which I was able to finish over the course of a couple of days.
I really liked Cyrus and Evie and I am hoping that the author has plans to write a follow up novel so that I can learn more about both of them. Evie is very resourceful and seems older than her years although at times my heart went out to her as it was revealed what she had suffered.
There were many twists and turns as the story progressed leading to a very exciting final few chapters.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable read which has certainly left me wanting more!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my arc in exchange for an honest review.

I was intrigued by the synopsis of this book and I'm happy to say that it lived up to my expectations.
Psychologist Cyrus Haven is called upon to assess a young girl with a traumatic past that she either can't or won't talk about. At the same time he is helping the local police figure out who killed a promising young skater.
Without a doubt this is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I sincerely hope that this is the start of a new series as there is so much more I want to know about Evie, Cyrus and Lenny.
Just a tip, don't start this book at night unless you have the next day off work as from the first chapter you won't be able to put it down until you finish it. I have just come to the end at 6.45 in the morning.

Posted on Goodreads and Amazon

What a great book it grips you from beginning to end I really cannot wait for another one of the best books I have read

Good Girl, Bad Girl is fantastic, it’s gritty, dark and had me on edge the entire time I was reading. Although it was quite a long book it ended far too soon. I need more! Cyrus and Evie are the best types of characters, very easy to fall in love with them despite their faults.

I really hope there will be a sequel since Good Girl, Bad Girl will be named as one of my books of the year. Honestly it’s impeccable, if you don’t pick this book up then you’re missing out!

Accidentally requested, have the USA version. So sorry! Will update when I read and review the USA version!