Another great read from JP Delaney. I was a little concerned that I wouldn't like this book as much as the last one, but I was so happy that wasn't the case.

This is a wonderful mystery about an actress who can’t seem to stop acting. Twists and turns to the very end! Loved it.

I enjoyed The Girl Before, but did not enjoy this book. It started out pretty good and then took a wrong turn and I found the plotline to be completely unbelievable. I'll give the author another shot in the future

Wow!

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma......

This book has more layers than an onion.....every time you think you have it figured out....another layer comes off.

This is an amazingly, well thought out deeply psychological story within a story. I could not put it down. It is the story of an inspiring actress who is studying acting in New York City. She has a scholarship to the acting school, but she does not have money on which to live. Oh, and she is from England and has no green card. So she results to off-book gigs that just a bit shady....And then there is a gruesome murder....and who did it? The police are looking for the truth. And thus the story begins......

This will be made into a movie, and actors and actresses will kill to get these roles.

Read this book. You will not be able to put it down. Six stars for this book!

"How do we trust each other again, when we both know how good we are at lying?"

Believe me, what a ride! Claire lives as an actress, she is always in character. When she does things, her way of thinking: "scene location, dialogue..." as if she's in a play.

She does undercover work for attorneys attempting to nab cheating husbands. A wife of one of the husbands is killed. Claire then is asked by the police to help catch the killer. If she does, then she can get a green card and stay in the U.S.A.

A creepy novel. Necropolis. Twists.

I enjoyed this so much that I immediately went to Delaney's other book, "The Girl Before."

Believe Me A Novel by JP Delaney published by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine
Ballantine Books is by far my stand out book for 2018. If you fallow my reviews then you know The Girl Before is my favorite book from 2017. Do you see a pattern here? Like The Girl Before this book is very well researched and is in the first person perspective and making it a horrific joy to read. But unlike the previous novel it is not about buildings and lines but about acting. My thoughts while I read this is who is fooling who. Claire is a fantastic character making the story well-paced making Claire feel put together yet not all there in the same breath. But what is more intense in the story is Claire’s decisions and connection with the male character. I get the feel that Claire does not feel loved by many if she even loves herself. Before you think that this story is just like the previous book this is it’s own mix of crazy special. I found this book like a puzzle that works your brain from page one until the last page. I find myself conflicted because there is so much that could be said but I don’t want to give it away to anyone so I will say that this is a book you must read when you have more time because it is a book you can and will want to read in one sitting. What’s next for this author? I am all in for the Perfect Wife insomnia welcome!

I’m at a loss of words. This book took me on a rollercoaster ride. I loved it then hated it, then loved it again.

Claire is an struggling and aspiring actress looking for her come up. She lures and captures evidence of cheating husbands as a side hustle to pay the rent. Things turn left for her when a client ends up dead and her husband is the primary suspect. A psychologist and deceive recruits her to get close to the husband and get him to reveal his secrets.

I don’t want to give away spoilers so I’ll be vague. The beginning started off interesting and grabbed my attention. Then towards a quarter of the way in, I was like, what? I got a bit confused with the plot and started losing interest. But the ending redeemed itself. So I was a bit conflicted with how I should rate the book; it’s not the best book I’ve read but I think an author who can get you to feel all these emotions deserves some applause.

I would recommend giving this book a try. Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I almost didn't finish this book about 2/3 of the way through. I am glad I did! It's a great story. I will probably reread it soon, as I don't think I grasped the entire concept the first time around.

Author JP Delaney employs an improbable and thoroughly unreliable narrator, Claire Wright. Claire is a down-on-her-luck actress who has resorted to entrapping potentially unfaithful spouses for sleazy divorce lawyers in order to pay the bills and avoid being deported back to England. Her once-brilliant career stalled after she became involved with a married co-star. Now she wants nothing more than another chance to showcase her talent. But in the meantime, she lures unsuspecting men into compromising situations, creating evidence their spouses can leverage in divorce proceedings or settlements.

One night she meets a man who truly intrigues her. Patrick Fogler leaves a book on the table of the bar where they meet: Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire, translated and edited by none other than Fogler. Claire does not succeed in luring him into a compromising situation which she reports to his wife, Stella Fogler, who hired her to attempt to do so.

That night Stella is brutally murdered. And Claire is enlisted by the police to attempt to lure Patrick again. But this time, she's expected to extract a confession from him. And she isn't given a choice -- if she wants to remain in the United States.

Delaney constructs a brilliant game of cat-and-mouse that leaves readers wondering who is sane or insane, depraved or moral, hunter or prey. The story twists and turns as Claire and Patrick grow closer, and the identity of Stella's murderer, along with her/her motive, becomes increasingly questionable. The search for truth believably plunges Claire into emotional collapse as Delaney keeps readers guessing whether Patrick is a loving, supportive partner . . . or a monster whose desire for debauchery becomes increasingly difficult to satisfy. Delaney employs a seldom-used storytelling device. Since Claire has devoted her life to performing on stage, many of her experiences are depicted as scenes from the play that is her life, complete with stage directions. The technique adds to the mystery, leading readers to wonder whether the scenes portray what is actually happening to Claire . . . or what she is imagining.

Believe Me is a fast-paced, mind-bending journey that will keep readers turning the pages until the jaw-dropping ending. It is a worthy follow-up to Delaney's previous work, The Girl Before. (Warning: Believe Me contains graphic descriptions of violence and adult situations that render it unsuitable for squeamish readers.)

Claire Wright is a British immigrant in NYC with a passion for acting.  While waiting for her big break, she moonlights helping a private investigator catch cheating spouses.  Until one night, a client is brutally murdered.  Was Claire the last person to see the client alive?  Did Claire go too far and commit murder?

Another great book by JP Delaney! I should have known better than to think I had Believe Me all figured out halfway through.  It is a roller coaster ride with an epic conclusion.  This book is only similar to his previous book, The Girl Before, was my favorite book of 2017 because of it’s twisted ending that had me floored.   It is very heavy on theater as a whole as well as heavily focused on the poet Charles Baudelaire making the extreme research very apparent.  

However, I did take one star away because although the main character, Claire, was dark and complex, I couldn't feel connected to her.  She seemed very self-centered and shallow for most of the book.  This is told mostly in Claire's perspective with the occasional input from other characters in script form (again, heavily focused on theater).    

For those who may be sensitive to certain themes or triggered: there was mild foul language, graphic violence, sexually explicit scenarios, mental illness, stalking, and manipulation.

Claire Wright is a British actress living in New York City without a green card. She needs money and can't be too particular about how she earns it, so she works as a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers, luring cheating husbands. One of her targets is Patrick Fogler, but when Patrick's wife winds up dead the police ask Claire to help prove that Patrick killed her. To Claire and Patrick, the author adds Baudelaire (who was seriously twisted), some cops who don't seem to operate by the book, a few psychiatrists, a BDSM website, one or more dead bodies, a group of acting students and histrionic personality disorder.

This book was a very entertaining tease. He did it, no she did it, no he did it, no she did it. Damn, maybe neither of them did it. Repeat to end of book. I liked it much more than I liked "The Girl Before". For one thing, the "girls" in that book were morons, while both Claire and Patrick seemed intelligent and plausible. I'm glad that I gave the author another chance. I listened to the audio book (while also reading the ebook) and while the narrators were all good, I felt that the book was marred by some obtrusive sound effects (for example, in every scene in a bar there was background noise.)

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

The complexity of the plot of Believe Me was a plus and a minus for me. The premise was what drew me to the book, and the story kept the promise of the premise for the most part. What I really appreciated was the early twists and turns and the talent Mr. Delaney has for placing enough red herrings that I saw every character as the potential villain. I would have liked the story to be a little more character driven, for the main character especially to have had more layers - to match the complexity of the story.
**spoiler*** I really was disappointed by the ending, it didnt match the quality of the rest of the storyline.
3.5

I have read many domestic thrillers recently, and Believe Me by JP Delaney is now at the top of my recommendation list. It has twists and more twists. The reader is never quite sure which version is the true story, or at least I was never sure. Usually, I will lean toward one side or another, but with this book, I just sat back and enjoyed the ride without over thinking.
The author's last book, The Girl Before, is excellent as well, but Believe Me is a step up.

This psychological thriller set in the theatre community of New York City was a wild ride! At times I wasn’t sure who to believe, the narrator, Claire, an expat, orphan from London, or any of the other supporting characters like Patrick, her love interest, or the psychologist or the investigator from the law office, Frank, who got her involved with Patrick. It’s a twisting roller coaster ride through the minds of ordinary people and the concept of evil. I couldn’t put it down! Thank you #netgalley for the opportunity to read and review #believeme by JP Delaney.

Given that I’m an unabashed nerd, it should come as no surprise that I love theater.

In high school, I demonstrated this love by tirelessly chairing the costume crew. I was… and still am… much better at sewing on buttons than tap dancing… or any dancing for that matter.

But in college, despite the fact that I did not major in theatre, by some happenstance, I had occasion to take a very large number of acting classes. This, for me, was odd because I really don’t like being the center of attention.

In fact I absolutely detest, and actively avoid, it.

A fat teenager to the core, I always felt ungainly and out of place in social situations and I really didn't want people looking at me. But when my shyness went to war with my desire to maintain a 4.0, the grade factor prevailed. I sucked it up, donned a cloak of bravery and did the occasional monologue, as uncomfortable as it may have been.

The opinion of Claire, the protagonist in this novel, couldn’t be more divergent from mine when it comes to the topic of basking in the glow of the spotlight.

She feels exceptionally at home on the stage.

She loves being looked at.

She loves being admired.

She loves being the center of attention.

It is her hunt for this adoration that brought her to New York City to study at a prestigious — READ: expensive AF — acting school.

This isn’t Claire’s first time on the stage, though. She had some minor success as an actress in her home country, England. But she managed to kill whatever momentum she was gaining by having an affair with her married co-star.

So New York is extra important. It’s her chance to start again. Her chance to actually make it big in the world of acting.

She’s so determined to make the most of this second chance that she won’t let anything — even the fact that she’s broke as a joke — stop her. Desperate to earn the money she needs to live in this expensive city and remain in her expensive program, Claire takes a questionably legitimate job working for a law firm acting as bait for married men.

Her job is simple — make herself visible and available, but wait for the mark to approach her.

Given the level of comfort she feels in her own skin, it’s not surprising that Claire performs this job well.

But then, everything changes.

The wife of one of the men she was assigned to trap is murdered.

Now, the police want to modify the rules of the game. They are certain that the woman’s husband, Patrick is the culprit. And they need Claire to help them prove it. They want her to directly pursue this man — who not only may have killed his wife but has also has dedicated his life to studying a poet whose works focused on masochism and murder (so, basically, he’s a scootch creepy).

To Claire, this assignment seems scary, but simple. Though she’s not exactly thrilled to cozy up to a maybe-killer, the things the police offer her in return are just too tempting. So she agrees to the arrangement.

What she quickly finds out, however, is that the assignment is far from simple. What she’s really agreed to do is crawl into a spider web. And, though she does so thinking she’s the spider, trapping Patrick in the intricacies of her gossamer web, she quickly comes to realize that she may have it backwards. That she may, really, be the prey.

Though I typically begin my evaluation of a novel by discussing weaknesses, when exploring this book, that’s exceptionally hard to do. This is primarily due to the fact that the weaknesses were so minimal and the strengths so substantial.

So, I’ll start with the strengthens.

*Spoiler Alert*

I mean, these aren’t REALLY spoilers… I’m going to keep it vague-ish… but if you want to go into this mofo blind, you should read the book now and then come back and read this later. #PublicServiceAnnouncement.

One inarguable strength of this novel was the way in which this author established and used an unreliable narrator.

Now, sure, the concept of using an unreliable narrator is hardly unique. But what I did find rather original, and decidedly less common, was the use of a narrator that at first appears reliable and is only later revealed to be less than trustworthy.

Much like the female lead in Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, readers began this novel feeling a kinship to Claire.

She had gotten a raw deal.

She had a rough go of it.

She was just trying to do her best to make her place in the world.

It's only later that we come to question whether what we know of Claire is real. It’s what the infusion of this uncertainty added to depth to the character that I found absolutely delightful.

Another strength of this novel was the pacing of the main character’s development.

Claire was dynamic AF. And, unlike so often when a character undergoes a massive change throughout the course of the novel, her evolution was largely believable.

The best way for me to explain this would be to use my favorite analogy — Yes… I’m a nerd… I have a favorite analogy. And a top three favorite words (1. Chagrin, 2. Ubiquitous, 3. Predicated), in case you were wondering.

Anyway.

My favorite analogy is the frog soup analogy. In case you don’t know, this is the idea that, if you're going to make frog soup, you don't try to dump the live frogs into a pot of boiling water. Instead you put them in the pot with cool water and put it on the stove.

Because the water heats up so incrementally, climbing degree by degree, the frogs don't become alarmed and try to jump out.

It's so gradual, they don't even notice.

Now, whether this is true or not, I honestly couldn't tell you. I've neither made, nor eaten, frog soup — I'm more of a Panera broccoli cheddar girl, to be completely honest.

But I find this analogy particularly apt to the process by which a novelist needs to have a character undertake a significant shift.

If, on one page, the character is scared and timid, and on the next she's Sheena, fucking warrior princess, it's not going to feel real.

If, on the other hand, the author takes his or her time, and allows this shift to happen little by little over the course of, say, a hundred or so pages, it can be not only believable, but profoundly satisfying.

Because it feels real.

Because, in real life, we are all gradually changing. We are all, taking in experiences and adjusting our attitudes and outlooks accordingly.

And, it was because this author truly took her time with our protagonist’s shift, from being relatively certain that her mark was a perverted serial killer to developing an infatuation and, dare I say, falling in love with him, that it was so amazingly effective.

The only element of this novel I could even begin to potentially find fault with was the conclusion.

My first thought upon reaching the conclusion of Believe Me was, “Meh... really?”

Could an actress really — would an actress really — do all of the stuff that happened in this novel?

Would she be so committed.

As I pondered this question, I thought back to a high school production of Grease.

I, per usual, was ensconced backstage, stitching up snagged poodle skirts and buffing the scuffs off of T-birds jackets.

But a friend, with whom I shared a marching band past, had the lead female role. Sandy.

It was the third night and, as she prepared to head on stage for the performance, she threw up.

IDK if it was some bad Wendy's®, or if she was sick. What I do remember, though, is that, without batting an eye, she took the stage... because the show must go on.

I, personally, abhor vomiting and, if I do have to vomit, I'm checked-the-fuck-out for the next week at minimum.

I still remember being absolutely amazed that she was able to gargle some Scope® and hit the stage.

My point is, maybe, if this high school drama club member could do that — could shake off tossing her cookies in a standard, industrial, plastic wastebasket moments before singing "Summer Lovin'" — just maybe Claire could do what she did in this novel.

Either way, I’m not even sure I could categorize this ending as a fault given the strength of the novel as a whole. Ultimately, I found it to be authentically surprising, supremely unpredictable and delightfully naught.

With its sweeping narrative and unforgettable main character, it earns a solid 5 out of 5 cocktails.

Loved the twists in this book. They were fast and furious throughout, and literally until the end you do not know exactly what is happening. I really enjoyed the ride! Definitely don't give up when things get slow (which they do at times) because just when you think you have it all figured out, then things change up again.
Highly recommended for readers of psychological suspense

I had thought this story was going to be like others, guy murders wife, new girl falls for him, she traps him into confessing. Boy was I wrong, There were so many twists in this mystery that I won’t spoil it for you. Just read this story and you’ll be so surprised. Can’t wait for our book clubs to discuss this one.

Hailing from Britain, Claire Wright has left behind a past marked with rejection. An actress struggling to make ends meet, getting a good acting gig is all the more harder as she does not a green card. She stumbles on what could be her saving grace -- working off the books for a detective agency. As a decoy all she has to do is act like she is available to roving husbands. It seems simple enough until one of her clients is murdered shortly after she delivers the evidence. In a case mirroring the poems of Baudelaire's <i>Les Fleurs du mal</i>, Claire finds herself trapped in a web of deceit. Is she a murderer or his next victim?

This was one thrilling ride! There were so many twists and turns that I couldn't figure out which end was up. Definitely looking forward to more from J.P. Delaney! Thank you Net Galley, Quercos and J.P. Delaney for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I inhale read this!! I could not put it down!! I have loved every single one of JP Delaney’s books and this was no exception!!! The characters are cringe worthy in the best way!!! The plot keeps you guessing from page one until the end. This book stayed with me for days!!! I could not stop thinking about it! I loved this and will continue to read anything this author puts out.

Another hit from JP Delaney! Believe Me was suspenseful and dark, certainly some uncomfortable parts, but necessary for this story. Towards the end I was disappointed, I thought
I had everything figured out, then was completely blindsided. As always, it was well written and full of twists and turns. ⅘ stars.