Thank you to Netgalley for access to reading Once A Liar in exchange for my honest review!
I don’t think I have ever disliked a protagonist as much I have in this book. Almost immediately I could not stand Peter Caine; egotistical, disrespectful, liar, cheater, and borderline psychopath are words I would use to describe him, but, I couldn’t get enough.
The book flips between then and now and we follow Peter from a marriage to his law firm partner’s daughter, birth of his son, cheating on his wife, death of his law firm partner, divorce, new girlfriend, death of his ex-wife, and then the death of his side girl, Charlie Doyle. Did you get all that?
The primary focus of this book is who killed Charlie Doyle, the daughter of the district attorney. The district attorney who would pimp her out to people to bribe them. The district attorney who so desperately wanted Peter to join his side and work for him. The district attorney who wasn’t aware of the affair Peter was carrying on with her, in fact, only his ex-wife knew. How long had the affair been going on? Well, let’s just say it hadn’t really stopped…
Peter has no remorse for anything he does and is just so focused on being on top and making money. The job of being a criminal defense attorney has taken a toll on him and turned his heart into stone. Someone could absolutely be guilty on all counts, but, Peter would make sure they would walk away without a slap on the wrist. He even walked away from his own son, never forming a relationship with him.
I had to see how this ended because I had to see SOMETHING happen to Peter Caine. I found the book to be fairly predictable early on with who killed Charlie. If *I* could guess who did it, I don’t see how anyone couldn’t predict it. You guys know I never see endings coming. The book reaches it climatic part right at the end of the book and gets resolved quickly. I felt a little conflicted about the end because I ended up hating a lot of people, ha! That’s all I will say! I used to feel bad for everyone who knew Peter and then, nope, I take back all of my sorrow I once had for all of you cold, heartless people!
I am going to give this book 3.5 stars which I will round up to 4 on sites like Goodreads and Amazon. It was pretty predictable and it felt odd to read a book where you can’t stand the protagonist the entire read. I also felt like the death of Charlie wasn’t justified enough. I mean, I get it and the whole point of the book was revenge, but, I just didn’t enjoy how the death of an innocent person was used for it. It felt a little much for me. Does that make sense? The writing was great, I just did not particularly care for the way revenge took place. Have you read this book? What are your thoughts?
Title: Once A Liar
Author: A. F. Brady
Publisher: Park Row
Release Date: January 29, 2019
Donna's Reading Chair 