4.5 stars
A well written, tight, twisty, turny, psychological thriller that kept me turning the pages as fast as I could. Subject matter was dark, so not a book for everyone. Who do you believe? Or do you believe at all? Definitely recommend this one.

I started this book yesterday and I couldn’t put it down. You fall in love with Patrick and the ending was just amazing. Always kept me guessing. Thank you netgalley for letting me read this book!

A highly unusual Book that sucks you in slowly. A bit slow at the beginning but I got drawn in once I got past the first chapter. Mesmerizing.

Last year JP Delaney jumped on the ever so popular female driven thriller bandwagon with The Girl Before, the book I personally found thoroughly underwhelming (although perfectly readable) with the most notable thing about it being a certainty (at the time) that the author was a woman. Apparently not. Gone are the days of women authors taking up gender nonspecific pseudonyms or versions of their own names just to be taken seriously by genre aficionados. This is an example of the reverse of that. Interesting. So anyway, to follow up the inexplicable success of The Girl Before JP Delaney did something genuinely unoriginal, he dusted off a 16 year old book of his originally published under his real name Tony Strong to no fanfare and some very lackluster reviews on GR, revamped it to fit into the new millennia, renamed it, slapped a new cover on it and here it is, getting a second life. Was it worth the effort? Sure, why not…with exactly that level of enthusiasm. It’s much like so many thrillers out there and it’ll appeal to less discriminating fans. Having expectations sufficiently adjusted after The Girl Before I wasn’t particularly disappointed by this one. Believe Me is, authentic to the tile, all about trust. Specifically a relationship between two murder suspects, a love story built on and around paranoia between a Baudelaire obsessed professor and an aspiring actress. The story is told from the perspective of the latter, so you have an essentially unreliable narrator, in fact both leads are all too good at lying. The outcome is two narcissistic over the top melodramatic characters (and to think only one is an actress) you don’t really care about playing games with each other. It has a vibe of an erotic thriller without all the sex, just that sort of flamboyant tackiness. Then again it manages to be very readable and the suspense is maintained throughout, although it does strain the credulity. How far does one go with method acting exactly? Anyway, the Baudelaire angle is nice. The plot offers a few surprises along the way, desperately trying to not be predictable. The book reads quickly. It is sort of fun, all the new/old tricks Delaney has up his sleeve. Thanks Netgalley.