The Sixth Lie by Sarah Ward

 

The Sixth Lie by Sarah Ward

published 2023

[excerpt] Men, Mallory decided, had a very strange way of looking at women. She had relied on Harri’s description of Becca, who’d been portrayed as part hippie, part cottage-industry entrepreneur. Becca’s mill, however, was definitely a reflection of the latter personality trait. From the moment visitors arrived, they were led on a tour that took in Welsh knitting history, local wool manufacturers and cutting-edge design. Becca, to be fair, did give the impression of not giving a shit what the world thought of her. She had deep mahogany red hair, which suited her, and dungarees with one shoulder flap undone. Her boots, however, were an expensive Australian make that Mallory had been craving for years but had decided the money would be better placed in the savings account for Toby’s university fees.

 

comments: Earlier this year I interviewed author Sarah Ward on the blog about The Birthday Girl, and I explained there the long happy history I have with Sarah over the blogging years.  She told us then that this was the first in her new series about Mallory Dawson. Now here is the second, The Sixth Lie.

Mallory is now living in the tiny Welsh city of St David’s, working at the Cathedral. We know from the first book that she was formerly a police detective in London, and is now open to consulting with the local police. So that takes care of the backstory, and we can head into the new plot. Which is an absolute banger: a woman is found dead in a field. Maybe suspicious, maybe not. She lost her son 12 years ago – a sad mixed-up story involving a group of friends moving between two houses during a drunken New Year’s Eve party. Most of them went on to respectable careers and lives, while the bereaved mother unsurprisingly never got over it.  But it becomes apparent that everyone was hiding something about that night – those are the Six Lies of the title.

Mallory has police colleagues she is getting to know, an ex-partner back in London, and a teenage son who has his own problems.

As ever it makes for a  full story – Sarah is always great at both terrific sleuthing and intriguing rounded characters, people you really want to get to know and find out about. I was really invested in the story.

Sarah always like details of arthcitecture, archaeology and location, and here key events take place not just in the Cathedral but also St Non’s Chapel on the cliffs nearby, a real place (though I had to look that up to be certain).

As in others of Sarah books, there are tiny references back to Golden Age fiction – in this case there are yellow buses, a key plot element, which refers surely to the yellow buses in Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder.

And great writing – this is how she establishes the atmosphere of the snowy Welsh town

After a brief respite, it had started to snow again: not the thick flakes of the previous evening, but icy sleet that bounced off his windscreen, like being in hyperspace inside a 1980s computer game.

 

The bad weather is almost another character, and tbh there are a lot of coats and warm jackets rather than designer clothes.

 But - that’s great clothes discussion at the top – and I have hopes that sooner or later Sarah will send Mallory somewhere with exotic clothes. No pressure Sarah – but definitely keep writing about Mallory, this is a great series.

There are several books by Sarah on the blog - use the labels below to reach other posts... 

Clothes pictures from ASOS and Uniqlo.