While the premise was intriguing, I decided to give this 3 stars.

I was interested in the choices Claudia would make and how she ended up in this predicament to chose between right and wrong in the first place. However, I ended up skimming parts and finding myself not excited to continue reading at certain parts where the murder wasn't the focus.

The murder itself was captivating -- two wealthy, well-connected members of society murdered and the science used to put the killer behind bars was recently revealed to be junk science. Everyone seemed so happy to quickly wrap it up with a bow that there wasn't much push to dig in further.

However, I found the society standards and connections hard to follow and since I'm not as familiar with them they felt a bit far-fetched. I also didn't find some of the character connections to be strong or believable as the story went on.

I have had Conviction, another one of Denise Mina's titles, on my to-read list and I do still plan to read it because while this story didn't blow me away, there is definitely potential for me to fall in love with her writing style!

Thanks again to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing me with a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of Denise Mina’s latest book The Good Liar. I’ve been a fan of her writing for years. This one did not disappoint. Exceptional writing, great characters and always a twist. I really enjoyed it and would recommend to all.

I love psychological thrillers and Denise Mina will be an author I will add to my list. The Good Liar’s main character is a forensic scientist specializing in blood spatter. Her testimony on a previous case help send a man to prison. Did she make an error in her report? Will she a year later recount her findings? What actually happened with her husband’s death.? Wealth and power are pivotal in this storyline.. This is definitely a page turner but I did get bogged down with the foul language.

Thank you NetGalley for letting me read the ARC .

I've become a Denise Mina fan! She's got various writing styles and this one was up my alley - complex legal thriller... unfortunately I struggled with getting through this one-maybe my mindset, I don't know. Kind of guessed the outcome although I never let myself think about this. I'm still here for the next one!

Have read many books with some nasty characters but this book was really dark. I could not like any of the characters which is rare for me. The story was intriguing which kept me reading it.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

In The Good Liar, Denise Mina crafts a taut, cerebral thriller that pulses with moral complexity and forensic intrigue. Set against the polished veneer of London’s elite, the novel follows Dr. Claudia O’Sheil—a blood-spatter expert whose career-defining testimony helped convict a man for a brutal double murder. But as she prepares to give a celebratory speech before the Royal College of Forensic Scientists, Claudia is haunted by a devastating truth: her evidence was wrong, and the real killer may be in the room.

Mina excels at building tension not through bombast, but through psychological excavation. Claudia is a compelling protagonist—brilliant, burdened, and increasingly unmoored as she unravels the conspiracy she once helped construct. The narrative toggles between past and present, slowly revealing the night of the murders at Chester Terrace and the web of ambition, grief, and manipulation that followed.

What sets this novel apart is its interrogation of truth itself. Mina doesn’t just ask whether Claudia will come clean—she asks what it costs to do so when your entire life is built on a lie. The stakes are deeply personal: Claudia’s reputation, her family’s security, and her own sense of self hang in the balance.

With elegant prose and a scalpel-sharp sense of pacing, The Good Liar is both a gripping mystery and a meditation on complicity. It’s a story about the lies we tell others—and the ones we tell ourselves to survive.

A must-read for fans of forensic thrillers who crave more than just plot twists—they want ethical whiplash.

I really enjoyed this complex book. The author did a great job bringing the often-flawed characters to life. The main character, Claudia, is a recently widowed woman who has multiple family problems. Her professional and social aspirations are challenged, and she has many ethical issues to resolve. There were many characters, and I was happy to be reading the book on my kindle so I could easily refresh my memory when they re-appeared. I found that this book was not the typical mystery/thriller but had a lot of substance with the issues raised in the book. I think this would be an interesting choice for a book group discussion. I enjoyed the many twists and turns in the story. Highly recommended!

If you appreciate complex characters and the tough ethical decisions that they face, this is the book for you. The characters in this novel are not boilerplate crime characters; there is a depth and heft to their personalities and their actions. An excellent exploration on the role of truth in our lives and the corruption of greed.

The Good Liar
By Denise Mina
Pub Date Jul 29 2025
Little, Brown and Company Mulholland Books

NO SPOILERS
My first book by this author and there will be more! I love the cover. I’m a huge fan of book covers. I do not do spoiler reviews. Everyone’s perception is different. I received a copy from Little, Brown and Company, Mulholland Books, and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This book is very suspenseful, which is one of the main components I look for in a storyline. There are a few timelines which are easy to follow. One concept that’s proven (in a book) that rich people can hide behind their power and wealth who can get away with murder.

If you like suspense genres that will keep you page turning pages, I definitely recommend reading this.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

I enjoyed this book, but it didn’t quite work for me. I liked the gritty noir element and, in Claudia, sometimes even saw glimpses of my all-time-favorite Mina heroine Maureen O’Donnell: both troubled and trouble (to those who deserve it and perhaps to the people who love and worry about her). But Claudia’s motivations felt too murky, rather than conflicted, and her character didn’t feel properly fleshed out. I felt blindsided often by other people’s assessments of her after spending almost the whole book inside her head: that her son (and reportedly her late husband) thought her a social climber; that her addict sister thought that she invited chaos, which I found a strange thing for an addict to think about another person. The upper class stuff also didn’t feel ethnographic or satiric enough, unlike say in Charlotte Vassell’s books, and the developments there seemed to be dictated by the plot.

Thanks to Little, Brown, and Company and NetGalley for letting me read an ARC of this book. 3/5 stars.

I received a free copy of, The Good Liar, by Denise Mina, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Is Dr. Claudia O'Sheil a good liar or not? Did she send an innocent man to prison with evidence she provided? I did not care for the language in this book, This book was a little to dark for me, the characters were not nice at all.

This is really a good twisty tale of lies and greed. Claudia, a respected scientist, is caught in the middle of fraud and murder. She is aware that revealing the truth about either will put her career and her children at risk.

As a forensic scientist, she has realized that her analyses are flawed. She also realizes that both she and her children are being manipulated by the man who has given her financial security. As the plot moves forward, Claudia becomes aware that deaths surrounding her are not accidental.

She is faced with a huge decision. The reader will be drawn into her moral and ethical dilemma. For those of us that love a good mystery, this is a fine choice.

I thank Netgalley for the opportunity to enjoy this compelling story.

A page turner I loved it and will recommend this read thank you for allowing me to read it I didn’t want it to end

This was a first for me by Denise Mina and let me tell you, it will not be the last! I love the way this was written. It kept me hanging on chapter after chapter. It was a fast paced thirller and as soon as you thought you knew what was going to happen, TWIST. Never saw it coming! THank you Denise. I cant wait to read another one from you!!!

I found this book very hard to stay with. The writing is acceptable, but the story just doesn’t flow well. The present to past flashbacks were not sufficiently correlated and early on in the book, I was a bit confused as to what was happening or did happen, in relation to what I had just read.

Claudia, the protagonist and her boss, Philip were the only characters that had any depth. Claudia's addict sister, Gina doesn’t add to the story in any meaningful way. The only character who was relatable, fun, and lighthearted was Sir Evan Evans.

I'm not a fan of foul language in my books, yet can tolerate a little. This book was replete with f-words, distracting from the overall reading experience.

Unfortunately, the ending was a cliffhanger that simply didn’t work. I didn’t find myself pining for the next installment, as any good cliffhanger ending would do.

I did give a second star for a marginally good plot, even though it did not come together as well as I hoped.

Thanks to #netgalley and #LittleBrown for the advance reader copy, in exchange for my unbiased review of #TheGoodLiar

Denise Mina’s *The Good Liar* is a captivating psychological mystery that hooks you from the start and keeps you guessing. The story follows Dr. Claudia O’Sheil, a blood spatter expert whose testimony helped convict a killer for a brutal double murder. Just as she’s about to give a big lecture to forensic experts, she discovers the real killer is in the audience.

As Claudia prepares for her talk, she grapples with the choice of maintaining a life-saving lie or coming clean for justice. The tension builds through her memories and moral dilemmas rather than graphic violence. While some side characters could use more depth, the core story remains engaging. Ultimately, *The Good Liar* is a thought-provoking look at guilt and the lies we tell ourselves, with Claudia as a memorable character facing everything on the line.

Blood spatter expert Claudia O`Sheil`s evidence put a killer behind bars. But now she learned that her evidence and testimony were wrong. So does she continue to keep quiet or tell the truth? Also the murderer is still out there. I loved the multiple timelines, which helped keep it so suspenseful. This book shows the power of the rich and what they can hide and get away with. The writing was strong in this novel and the character of Claudia was complex. This was a great book and I need to read all of the author`s previous books!

Mina’s 2019 crime thriller, Conviction, was one of the first books I remember really liking from this genre. I’ve sought out and read several since, and she has such a unique and compelling approach to story telling. Her female protagonists tend to have this unapologetic, raw tone.

We have Claudia O’Sheil, a recently widowed forensic scientist who is thrust into the middle of a high profile, gruesome double homicide straight from the jump. She is forced to juggle her personal life, her grief, her two teenage boys, her struggling sister and now this case. The pacing shifts, the time jumps from the present to a year ago, yet it all works. The book as a whole was a satisfying and fun read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m sure I’ve liked everything I’ve read that Denise Mina has written, although off the top of my head I can’t name any titles…but I was happy to receive a copy of her latest, The Good Liar, from Little, Brown/Mulholland Books and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I love mysteries, almost never guess the ending, and appreciate strong female characters. Check, check, and check! The female in this one is a professor whose expertise focuses on blood spatter (eewww,how do people get into these specialities? Yesterday I spent an hour listening to a trial with an expert on dog bites – or “canine dentition.” Anyway, Claudia O’Neill is just about to give a talk to a very distinguished audience about her most famous/notorious case: the “Chester Terrace murders.” And unlike previous presentations, she is resolved to finally tell the truth.

The storyline revolves around the fact that rich and powerful people actually can keep the truth hidden due to their wealth/position/whatever.

There are multiple timelines, but it’s not a challenge to follow. It’s suspenseful and kept me turning pages (figuratively) right until the end. Great portrayal of the “elites” who seem to often get away with murder. Recommended! Four stars.

The Good Liar is yet another intelligent mystery from Scottish Denise Mina. I don’t believe that Mina has written a book that I have not found wonderful, and here, again, she shows me why Mina is one of my favorite authors.
Mina began her career writing two absorbingly intense (but often humorous) mystery series. First Garnethill (1998, 2000, 2001) with three titles and then the Paddy Meehan series (2005, 2006, 2007) with three titles. She won the Edgar and Anthony for the middle book in the Paddy Meehan series, The Dead Hour, along with other awards and nominations for her works, too long to list. If you have not read these series, you are missing some of the best novels in the mystery genre. When people ask me about my favorite writers – Denise Mina always makes the cut. (If you love Louise Penny, you will also love Denise Mina)
Here, with a stand-alone novel, Mina deals with the topic of forensic junk science. Our heroine, Claudia Atkins O’Sheil, is England’s premier forensic scientist, specializing in blood-spatter analysis. After a wealthy man and his fiancée are brutally murdered with no clues left behind, Claudia’s work on blood-spatter plays a big part in charging the wealthy man’s son. But following a series of strange revelations, Claudia believes him to be innocent and her “science” flawed.
At the same time, Claudia begins to wonder about her husband’s accident when another friend dies in the exact same manner. The book opens a year later with Claudia about to give a speech about this case at the Royal College of Forensic Scientists in London– will she reveal her findings about what really went on and destroy the lives of everyone around her or will she carry on with her part in the cover up?
The Good Liar is a taunt thriller about privilege, power and in the end, morality. Mina once again cleverly brings the reader into her world where murder is only the step-off point to delving into life’s meaning and purpose.

My rating: 5 of 5
This ARC title was provided by Netgalley.com at no cost, and I am providing an unbiased review. The Good Liar will be published on July 29, 2025.