Thanks to Netgalley for the preview of this book. It was only ok. I for the life of me couldn't understand the decisions made my Paul and his wife in this book. As a result of this I felt annoyed and bored reading this it was really unbelievable with unlikeable characters.

Paul comes home to find a body in the bathroom and his wife covered in blood.

Their decision as to what happens next sets the dark tone of The First Lie.

It’s quite an unbelievable story thread, which makes it intriguing to read. I it’s a slower paced thriller but one that makes for a good read.

The First Lie. An interesting title. Paul Reeve, well-respected barrister and husband to Alice. He arrives home to find his house in darkness and half a dozen missed calls on his mobile from Alice. Both of those things set the alarm bells ringing. His front door is open and his gut instinct is that something bad has happened. That instinct is proven right as he finds Alice upstairs, covered in blood and a dead man in his bathroom. For some totally bizarre reason Paul decides not to call the police but to dispose of the body and cover up any sign that the man was ever in the house: the first lie. Or is it?

This is a twisted psychological tale, portrayed from 3 points of view: the Reeves themselves and the detectives, Wright and Hillier, who are called in to investigate an apparent serial killer who it transpires graduated from the same law school as Reeve. Paul starts to sweat more than a little when the detectives come knocking at his door but is relieved to hear that they are not there for the reason he initially thought.
The pressures of what Paul and Alice did that night slowly eat away at both of them, with Alice appearing to suffer some kind of breakdown while Paul loses himself in a prestigious new job as the youngest ever Circuit Judge. They each begin to question how much they can trust one another and cracks start to show in their relationship - unsurprisingly given what a huge secret they are hiding.

I found some aspects of the story towards the end of the book a little far-fetched but as long as you keep in mind that this is not real life and just go with the flow, this is a nerve jangler of a psychological thriller.
The final chapters kept me turning the pages well past my bedtime and I found the whole book quite reminiscent of 'Gone Girl' - whether this is a good thing or not will depend entirely on your personal view. I myself enjoyed it but wanted to strangle both of the Reeves at various points and for different reasons. I thought there could have been more character development with the detectives, however I don't know whether there is a follow up book planned which could explain why this is the case and if there is I would certainly sign up to read it.

Paul comes home from work one evening to find a dead man in his bathroom and his wife covered in blood.
She said that the intruder had come to kill her but she was able to attack him from behind.
They decide to get rid of the body and not to contact the police.
I found this story unbelievable and the characters failed to hold my interest.
Thank to to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review

The First Lie is a gripping, dark and entertaining debut from A. J. Park, which is equal mixes of psychological thriller, police procedural and emotional drama. It beautifully blends the lines between crime mystery and domestic drama, making it a real page-turner!

After Judge Paul Reeve comes home to find his wife Alice has killed an intruder, he makes some very drastic decisions to cover up the crime and dispose of the body. Will Alice and Paul survive the aftermath of their crimes? Or will DS Katherine Wright and DC Ryan Hillier’s investigations into three murders, where the victims all had a link to Reeve, lead the police directly to the couple’s door?

There’s a dark heart at the core of The First Lie and it’s devilishly addictive. I was bowled over by the clever and exciting mix of police investigation and the breakdown of Paul and Alice’s marriage in the aftermath of their cover up. The different affect their actions had on both of them were so authentic that I could picture myself reacting in the ways they both do if I was in the same situation. I also enjoyed the social commentary on how one initial lie can lead to a cacophony of further untruths, which ultimately unravel your entire world. I could genuinely feel the exhaustion both Paul and Alice felt at maintaining and developing their lies to keep their original crime hidden. Park’s writing captures this in an exceptionally vivid way and I really enjoyed the composition of the narrative. Having chapters written from both Paul and Alice’s point of views and then third person accounts of the police investigation gave this novel additional power. It was particularly exciting reading how Paul and Alice’s viewpoints differed and how both of them misinterpreted each other and the other’s actions. This provided some vibrant tension and their were moments when I gasped out loud!

Another aspect that makes this such an enjoyable read is the fact that nobody is quite who they seem in this novel. Because of this, there are some considerable curveballs in the plot that take you by complete surprise. Just when I thought things were progressing one way, Park threw in another development or another surprise and completely pulled the rug out from underneath me. I had my suspicions upon who the ultimate culprit was and I wax pleased to be proved right. Whilst this may come as a shock to some, I think there are enough subtle hints along the way to tantalise reader’s suspicions. Ultimately, the actual murders investigated here are far less important than Paul and Alice’s marriage and the events that tear them apart and may just bring them back together. There’s an almost Hitchcockian McGuffin element to the murders here, which helps keep readers firmly focusing in the wrong direction whilst Park builds his suspense and twists right under our noses.

I couldn’t put The First Lie down and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for an intelligent, surprising and affecting read.

Reminiscent of Gone Girl, The First Lie is fast-moving, compelling and chilling in equal measure. Told from three different perspectives, the couple at the heart of the murder and the police detectives investigating a series of suspicious deaths which at first seems unrelated, but as you race toward the end it all comes together beautifully in a shocking twist.

There were some parts of the story that felt overly cliched, and the sudden personality change of Alice is jarring, but the author makes her character seem convincingly disturbed given everything the couple go through over the course of the novel. Would recommend!

The opening chapters to The First Lie had me gripped and were well written. I could feel the fear of Paul and Alice as they make a decision that they'll never be able to go back from. I enjoyed the rest of the book but I didn't find it as captivating as the opening promised it would be. Overall a good read.

Sadly I didn't enjoy this book at all, I found the plot unbelievable with two dimensional characters and stilted dialogue.
Thank you to netgalley and Orion for an advance copy of this book.

I agree with a lot of other reviewers in their critiques. This book started off well although why Paul didn't just ring the police when he found a dead body in his bathroom, a stranger murdered by his wife in self defense, is beyond me. Maybe having just become a High Court judge, a career move that was always his ambition to achieve, especially as the youngest ever in office, Paul thought this might fall apart all around him, his dream shattered through no fault of his own. The plot was quite interesting although it didn't take an immense amount of policework to discover the perpetrator or motive behind the murders. The second half of this book was really off the scale in reality and for someone who uses his judgement to decide on life changing fates passed down to defendants brought before him in court, Paul acted stupidly through and through. If Belinda had been working for him for three and a half years he would surely have known something about her private life otherwise he would have been a shallow and selfish person to work for. I daren't even start on Alice. All in all an interesting book at the start which decendid into fantasy.

The First Lie is a thrilling, twisty, edge of your seat read.
One of those books which you’ll lose track of time when reading into the night,

The ending for me was guessed but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the tension within.

A good 4.5 star read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The first lie
-AJ Park

A nice quick read but predicted the outcome quite early on in the book. Maybe I read too many of this type of book who knows.
Many thanks to both netgalley at the author for allowing me to read this book.

Quick and easy read, entertaining to have a mindless reading. Nothing particularly original.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

I never repeat the blurb. This was OK as a read but not particularly taxing and was irritating as far as the constant narrator switching went. The culprit was made (to me) obvious from the start and on the whole, life would not be worse if I'd not read this. OK for a quick read.

Wow, a gripping novel that I just couldn’t stop reading in fact I finished this in a day. What would you do if you came home a discovered your wife had murdered a man that had entered the house? This is the question that Paul has to answer when he arrives home from work. What happens next is a rollercoaster of a ride for Paul his wife Alice and for you the reader. Loved this book lots of twists and turns.

Thank you to the author and publishers for the arc of The First Lie.
I have always enjoyed aj parks previous books so was excited to find out a new book was ready but unfortunately I didn't feel this book lived up to the others.
I found it a bit too flaky and incredulous. It didn't keep me guessing and have the psychological suspense I have come to expect and relish from previous books.
I did read it and it was ok just not wowed by it.

If you were a Barrister and came home to discover your wife had murdered someone in your home, the intruder is lying clearly very dead with your letter opener covered in blood you'd ring 999 and tell the truth wouldn't you?
Because we all were told as children "tell one lie and it will lead to many more"
Well thats why we have such a gripping start to a story because as A J Park reveals, Paul the protective husband doesn't ring the police but goes into the lets get rid of the body mode and the first lie is cast.
With pages turning initially so quickly in my hands I enjoyed this and I can imagine many reading this over the summer and enjoying the fairly lightweight plot.
Lots of great character building, paced but totally unbelievable. As Paul and Alice are totally consumed by the self defence/murder we see a story running in conjunction to all this as Paul's university friends seem to keep being killed off. Could the mystery intruder and the untimely murders be connected?
I was disappointed in the ending I wanted to see it all brought together more tightly.
Overall a good easy read, but lacking depth and reality. For me 2.5 stars.

This is a difficult review for me to write, as this is quite a quick read, but for me the pace was too slow, I didn’t like any of the characters, and some of the plot was just totally implausible, although no one knows how they will react in any given situation. I appreciate others may absolutely love this read.

Paul is a high flying Barrister, he has just received the promotion he wanted, to be a judge in the circuit, he is over the moon. But when he comes home one day and finds his wife has killed another man in their home, he doesn’t call the police he buries the body, why? After all it was self defence. He has so much to lose. Is he doing it to protect his wife Alice?

This one decision changes everything, not only does it affect their relationship, but it affects their lives. How could it not?

I just found this story to be so unbelievable, there was no real depth, I was disappointed. The police officers were wooden and just seemed totally pointless and useless.

The writing overall is good, I just wish I could have believed more in the story.

I would like to thank #netgalley and #Orion for an eARC of this in exchange for an honest, fair and unbiased review.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher, Orion Publishing Group, for the ARC.

The story begins quite chillingly as Paul arrives home to a darkened house and the front door ajar. He finds his wife Alice sitting on the bed, distraught and covered in blood. There's a dead man in the bathroom, having been stabbed in the back of his neck with Paul's paper-knife.

Now, Paul has just been promoted to be the youngest Circuit Judge in the UK and shortly to be sitting in judgment at The Old Bailey. So what does he insist they do? - why of course, what anyone not in their right mind would do - conceal the self-defence crime and bury the body! After all, Paul is a celebrity, he couldn't keep his position if his wife was in prison for manslaughter.

Then, I'm afraid it all went downhill from there. Lots of desperate narrative around forensically cleaning the house and the effort in burying the body, followed by a return to 'normal' life. However, things could never be normal again as Alice becomes a scared and depressed recluse and Paul struggles to follow the legal arguments presented to him in Court.

Meantime, DS Katherine Wright from the MIT is wondering how long she can deal with her job when she starts investigating a series of murders where the male victims have been garrotted.
The one saving grace for me was that this book definitely wasn't described as a detective story - because the investigation that ensues is, quite frankly, unbelievably inept.

When, finally, we reach the conclusion, well, it just underlined my disappointment of it all.

I was so looking forward to a good psychological thriller, unfortunately this isn't one, I'm sorry to have to say.

To be honest I can't muster up much enthusiasm to write a review. It was at best an okay read but I found it totally unbelievable and I became very frustrated as I progressed through the book. I know it's fiction but I feel some credibility and realism is required for a good read and I found this book totally lacking in both. Sorry but not for me

This was an excellent mystery novel that I enjoyed reading. The storyline literally kept me glued to the pages. I can’t recommend the book enough!