I thought this book started well and initially thought I was really going to enjoy it, but as it went on and the plot unfolded I found it less and less to my liking. I found the main character, Claire, to be irritating and self obsessed and perhaps this coloured my judgement of the book overall as the plot and twists and turns in the story were good - though at times there was so much going on it became confusing. I appreciate that much of the story was based on Patrick's loving of the works of Baudelaire and his most famous book 'The Flowers of Evil' but I thought there was too much emphasis on this book and it did detract from the story.

I thought The Girl Before was ok so decided to give Delaney’s new book a go and wasn’t disappointed. I thought the story was starting to get a bit drawn out by the midpoint, but it picked up again towards the end. An interesting plot that highlighted a huge gap in my knowledge of Baudelaire, Flaubert and French writing in general. A good effort in what is a very popular genre and a quick read too.

I really wanted to enjoy this book but I found my interest fading towards the end. It starts very well although the main character Claire is somewhat unlikeable I think this is what we are supposed to feel regarding her. It is an interesting concept of how actors approach their work and ultimately the twist lies within this.

This is the second book I have read by this author. I really enjoyed the creepy “the girl before”.
This second novel didn’t disappoint and not only could I not put it down, but I was also thinking about it when I wasn’t reading - which for me is a always the mark of a good book.

This was a really enjoyable story, kept you guessing till the end and I am rating this as a solid 4 star read.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this title in return for an honest review.

JP Delaney is fast becoming one of my favourite authors; I loved The Girl before and was over the moon when I received Believe Me. This book tells the story of Claire who ends up being a part of a police operation to capture a potential serial killer, the issue is....she doesn't think he is guilty

Claire was a unique narrator, with the story sometime going into the form of a script (which does not present well on an e-device but there is not a lot the author can do about that), as well as the reader never being entirely sure whether she is telling the truth, or if she is even slightly reliable as a narrator. Patrick was just as intriguing, with the uncertainty of who is telling the truth creating a claustrophic and nerve-wracking read.

I really enjoyed the premise of the book, even though I had to suspend my disbelief a number of times with regard to the police procedure. It was interesting to see the writers take on mental health, although that section of the book does create a number of questions that are not really resolved and I am still questioning the end of the book and whether it is the truth or a part of Claire's scripting and not a real event. This is one of the two criticisms I have with this book (they both relate to the same section) as the other is the sudden change of pace that happened at that part of the book threw me completely out of the narrative and it took me a while to get back into the book. I semi wish that the scenes relating to mental health had not taken place (am really REALLY trying to not post spoilers) as that would mean that the pace of the book was consistent throughout and it would have been amazing.

However, that ending was amazing, and there is a subtle hint to it that I missed meaning I was kicking myself when the reveal happened. I thought it was brilliant, with the twist and the reveal being done incredibly well as well as raising some interesting moral questions. A great read that I would recommend.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book fin exchange for a fair and unbiased review

From the author of last year’s runaway bestseller The Girl Before comes Believe Me, a psychological thriller that will have you second, third and fourth guessing yourself. With an incredibly intriguing premise and a plot full of twists and turns, this is one dark, addictive read where nothing is what it seems.

A gripping read. The characters are all totally plausible and the storyline holds water better than most similar tales that depend partly on an old real case. The timeline switches are clearly signposted and help with the development of the underlying story. Originality out of an old tale is difficult but JPD manages it very well and keeps up the highly strung tension until the last page.

Brilliant read, I was kept guessing throughout the whole book.
Every plot twist and change left me ready to turn the page a find out where I was being lead... not until the very end was I convinced it was actually concluded! Sounds ridiculously out there but until you read you won’t understand...

This is a great read! Its face paced and exciting. I would recommend this book as I read it very quickly. Thank you for the opportunity to read it I will look for more by this author.

An entertaining psychological thriller. A must read for those who enjoy dark, clever and twisty thrillers.

Oh man where do I even start with this book? From the very first chapter I was completely hooked and ended up finishing this book within 48 hours. This book is sexy, suspenseful and surprising throughout and I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of my favourite things about this book are the short chapters and the fact that it’s often set out in the format of a script which I found very unique and made it a lot more interesting to read. This is also very relevant to the story as the main character Claire is an enthusiastic actress.

I frequently found myself on the edge of my seat and I really had no idea what was about to happen. I really love when I can’t guess the ending of thrillers and this book definitely had that going for it! It’s a great thriller and it’s definitely up there with my favourites.

I really enjoyed this book and found the storytelling different from the normal page turners we see hyped. I enjoyed the character of Claire quite a lot and was invested in her outcome. This one kept me guessing the whole way through. Five stars!

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. A dark and twisted thriller that lured me into the story and captured my thoughts until the very last page. Great read

'I'm just an actress. I wanted to stand on stage and have people applaud me. How on earth did I get into this?
Claire Wright likes to play other people.
A British drama student, in New York without a green card, Claire takes the only job she can get: working for a firm of divorce lawyers, posing as an easy pick-up in hotels bars to entrap straying husbands.
Never hit on them directly, she's told. We're after evidence not entrapment. The innocent have nothing to fear.
That's the theory anyway. But Claire is so good at this, she rarely fails to get her man.
When one of her targets becomes the subject of a murder investigation, the police ask Claire to use her acting skills to help lure their suspect into a confession. But right from the start, she has doubts about the part she's being asked to play. Is Patrick Fogler really a killer....or the only decent husband she's ever met? And is there more to this set-up than she's being told?
And that's when Claire realises she's playing the deadliest role of her life...
.
OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS BOOK!! I love The Girl Before but this one is even better!!!! I loved all of the characters, the plotline and the outcome 😱 twists and turns all the way through kept me guessing and I finished it in pretty much one sitting!! What a stunning book....can't wait for the next one now!!

Actors are a weird bunch (apparently), but our Claire is a whole new level of weirdo entirely. A Brit, who ran to America to escape her turbulent past, heart aches and a scandal. But no matter how many times her background came up, I couldn’t help but think, something’s really fishy there. Somehow there was always someone out there to get her, take her down, ruin her life. Now, living in America on a student visa, Claire is working for some law firm, pretending to seduce cheating husbands and record it all for evidence. As she’s not allowed to work on a student visa, this is of course all illegal, but nobody seems to think that this is a problem.

One of the obvious rules of the job is, that she’s not supposed to actually hit on the client’s husband. But on her last assignment she ends up reading some Baudelaire poem with the mark for like ten minutes, and instantly her panties are melting and she’s pretty much in love with the dude who in turn couldn’t care less. So when the dude’s wife ends up murdered, and the police first accuses Claire of killing the woman, then a bit later recruits her to seduce the husband because surely he’s the killer, in fact might be also a serial killer, and work for them undercover, or else they will deport her back to the UK, she’s like “Oh, hell yeah, I kinda liked the dude anyway, he’s really hot with that french poetry of his!“

If I said Claire is an unreliable narrator, that’d be the understatement of the year. You see, there’s unreliable, and there’s utterly insane. At times I was wondering if she’s actually able to tell fantasy apart from reality, or is it just me missing something. Anything she said happened to her just sounded dodgy, and all the twists and turns the story took just made the whole mess even more confusing and crazy sounding. She viewed her life like it was a Hollywood movie, and the formatting in places resembled a movie script. It was never quite clear whether some of those scenes actually happened or just played out in her head. The lovely Claire was certainly a bit unhinged, and all that waffling about her being such a great actress that she just turns into her role so much that she believes she’s someone else sounded way too far fetched, exactly because of all the cray-cray stuff that seemed to happen to her. Nah, this bitch is insane…

First of all, let me just say, the whole story smelled like bullshit to me. Considering the genre, I expected something at least remotely realistic, so when I found myself doubting the whole set up, I actually did a few hours of research to see if this kind of shit where the police uses untrained civilians for undercover operations really happens. The answer? The fact that nothing supporting the theory actually turned up suggests that the answer is most likely no. After hours worth of search on Google, in my police procedures reference book (US version) and half a weekend spent watching some true crime documentaries I’d say it’s not something that would ever happen in real life, more like in a Mexican soap opera.

Or did she just imagine this whole thing?

As I started this book I thought that it was going to be one which was "not for me", however, I'm very glad that I persisted! After a chapter or two it morphed into an engaging page-turner, taking you on an unpredictable journey and allowing you to become immersed into a compelling, if slightly far-fetched, world.

Description was detailed and the characterisation allowed for a fairly immersive experience. If I were to criticise it would be the rather superfluous use of "stage setting" quotes - I found them confusing and rather unnecessary.

This isn't a book for those who don't want to be challenged and are not comfortable reading about the darker side life. For those who find the "50 Shades" series subject matter an abomination, you'll find this more uncomfortable. For those who don't mind being made to feel slightly uncomfortable, both in terms of subject matter and your own feelings towards your engagement with the story, I'd urge you to give it a go.

WIth thanks to the author and publisher for the advance copy, through NetGalley.

What a thrilling unputdownable book. The book kept me guessing throughout and I could not put it down until I was finished. The whole concept of trust allowed for some ingenious plot twists. I love this author already and off to buy her next book

I was rather engrossed when reading this book, the way it kept me invested at every twist and turn.
I loved the fact you did not know who's narrative to believe and by the end of it you did not want to believe anyone.
The uniqueness of this book in the use of the erotic poetry is something I enjoyed, the use of script aspects and criminal profiling.
This was my first read of the Author Jp Delaney but I would definitely read him again.

After reading The Girl Before I was really excited to read another one of JP Delaney's books and he has written yet another astonishingly twisted thriller. Believe Me focuses on a young actress who gets caught up in a very weird game - she sets honey traps for cheating husbands, but soon it gets much darker than that.

Yes, it's a bit ludicrous, and you need to seriously suspend your disbelief to go along with the idea that the FBI would enlist the help of an outsider to catch a serial killer. But if you can do that then this is a great read which will keep you guessing.

(Strangely, the plot was very similar to another book I read recently, whose title is also very similar to JP Delaney's last book - The Woman Before You by Carrie Blake - but thankfully this was a lot better)

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Claire Wright likes to play other people, she is a struggling British actress, in New York without a green card and Claire needs work. She takes the only part she is offered: as a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers, hired to entrap straying husbands, catching them on tape with their seductive propositions. The rules? Never hit on them directly. The firm is after evidence, not entrapment. The innocent should have nothing to hide. Then the game changes. When the police start investigating one of Claire’s targets for murdering his wife, they ask her to help lure their suspect into a confession.
Oh my goodness my head was all over the place with this book! This is some seriously mind-boggling stuff. Delaney throws in more twists than I could keep track of, just when one is revealed and dealt with, there is another sprung on us. Yes, some of them are more obvious than others but they all ensure for intoxicating reading and I absolutely loved every page of this book. This is definitely my favourite thriller of 2018! So far anyway.
I adored how Delaney wrote this, we follow Claire on her journey, following her as she struggles to make ends meet in New York, working for the divorce lawyers and how she ended up working with the police. This allows us to understand and develop a relationship with Claire, which I did very quickly, and then see her in the desperate situation she finds herself in. Claire does not know who she can trust and neither does the reader, this book is very addictive reading. Delaney has a lot of red herrings throughout this book and it really played with my mind after a while, I found myself lost in the maze of this book, desperately trying to get out and work out the resolution. I cannot emphasise enough how thrilling and shocking the book is as a whole and how wonderfully shocking the twists are.
Claire really is the perfect character for this, as I said I quickly developed a relationship with her but even after this, I could still see she is flawed and damaged, she comes across very human and it is only too easy to empathise with her as we learn the truth. This book is all about twists and what the truth is and it is no different with the characters, again we are unsure which characters we can trust and this only adds to the mind boggling mix.
‘Believe Me’ is a stonker of a thriller, I could not get enough of this and have not stopped recommending it. Even if you do not usually read thrillers, pick this one up, you will not regret it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus Books for an advance copy.