At the center of this story is a chalice from the Middle Ages being smuggled out of France to avoid it ending up in the hands of the Nazis. It gets hidden in a police detective’s house, while criminals are trying to get to it. Adding a psychiatric patient into the plot and we have an exciting, unpredictable story where an abuse victim is found dead.
House of Lies is book #3 in Cat Carlisle Series and is about local detective Thomas Charles who has agreed to keep the valuable chalice safe in his house until the war is over. That seems to not go well as the thieves discover where it is hidden. The plot seems to start out as several independent looking stories. I enjoyed realizing that these were elements which enriched the plot and they all tied nicely together a few chapters in. The plot kept me gripped and entertained throughout. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I felt nervous about what would happen. Perhaps I am a bit of a thriller novice, but for me there were some nail biting parts.
Main character Catherine-Cat Carlisle is wealthy widow running a safe house for abused women and is engaged to Thomas Charles. While I find her gullible, bordering on irresponsible, not taking danger seriously enough, I can relate to the do-gooder side of her which seems to take over. Fortunately her fiancé worries for her safety. He seems a really good man with a kind heart. I really like his caring and responsible demeanor and fortunately he seems a level headed person not easily scared. Best of all, for a man of the 1940s, he is conscious not to limit Cat’s activities in any way even if it should lead to danger. Easily my favorite character of this story.
There were plenty of other interesting characters in this book, of which I particularly enjoyed mentally unstable and dangerous Margaret Bettencourt. She turned up at Cat Carlisle’s women’s shelter claiming to have been abused by her husband. She added some serious drama to the plot. To read about her, I found a hair-rising-in-my-neck kind of thrilling. In all her madness I found her as interesting as she was scary.
I loved the setting of 1940s British countryside, mixed with danger and drama that seemed to follow the two main characters. I love the descriptions of 1940s English environments and sceneries as well as all the tea breaks. I also found the parts describing how the war affected the way people lived on every level of society very interesting.
House of Lies (Cat Carlisle #3) by Terry Lynn Thomas is the first I have read by this author. I found it exciting and thrilling with a bit of romance. No problem reading it as a standalone, but I prefer to start series with installment #1 to pick up on reoccurring characters and storylines throughout. House of Lies is recommended for fans of Terry Lynn Thomas and readers of historical fiction.
Thank you to HQ Digital and NetGalley for this eARC which gave me the opportunity to share my honest review. All opinions are completely my own.
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