I was totally absorbed into this book from the first few pages! It was truly exceptional and I couldn’t put it down. I was compulsive reading and I couldn’t stop and had to read to the end!

It was a gut punch of a thriller. Luca Veste delivers a fast-paced, unputdownable read with a twist that blindsided me and made me gasp out loud! I can’t wait for next book!

Luca Veste is back where he should be, in the Pool of Life! Yes, his new novel Liar Liar takes us back to where it all began, the wonderful city of Liverpool, and we are reunited with the duo from his early books, Murphy and Rossi, albeit in new roles. Disgraced cop Mark Fletcher wakes up beside a corpse and he must fight to prove his innocence while being pursued by his er stwhile colleagues and friends. Superb setting, great characters, tremendous plot, fabulous!

Liar Liar is pulse-pounding, gritty, and deeply unsettling. Veste’s writing is as lean and mean as ever. I went in thinking I had the twist figured out by the midpoint—I was dead wrong. If you like your thrillers with a side of moral ambiguity and a breakneck pace, this is your next obsession.

📚I was able to read an advanced copy of title thanks to NetGalley, Luca Veste and Avon Books UK📚
📚All reviews and opinions are entirely my own📚

Liar Liar is a taut, propulsive thriller that drops you straight into the wreckage of a man’s ruined life and never lets up. Mark Fletcher, once Liverpool’s golden‑boy detective, is now a pariah — disgraced, discredited, and drowning under accusations that have stripped him of everything he once was. That fall from grace gives the novel its emotional weight, because when he wakes in a hotel room beside a dead body, with no memory of the last twenty‑four hours, you feel the panic and disbelief right alongside him.

The setup is classic but handled with a sharp, modern edge. The evidence is damning, the timeline impossible to piece together, and the force he once served turns on him with chilling speed. What follows is a breathless cat‑and‑mouse chase through Liverpool’s criminal underbelly and its institutional shadows, where Fletcher must rely on instinct, fractured memory, and the remnants of a detective’s intuition to stay alive. The tension comes not just from the danger stalking him, but from the gnawing question of whether he can trust his own mind.

The novel shines in its moral complexity. Fletcher isn’t a clean‑cut hero — he’s bruised, bitter, and carrying the weight of past choices that make him both sympathetic and unpredictable. The city’s most notorious crime family looms over the narrative like a dark tide, and the possibility that Fletcher was framed — or manipulated — adds a delicious uncertainty to every encounter. Each twist feels earned, each revelation tightening the net around him until the truth becomes the only thing that might save him.

There’s a gritty, lived‑in quality to the writing that makes the chase feel immediate: back‑alley tension, institutional betrayal, and the sense of a man fighting not just for justice, but for the right to be believed. The hunter‑becomes‑the‑hunted arc is executed with real finesse, building to a finale that lands with both clarity and impact.

Dark, relentless, and full of razor‑edged suspense, Liar Liar is a gripping ride for readers who love flawed heroes, twisting loyalties, and thrillers that keep you questioning every character on the page.

With thanks to Luca Veste, the publisher and netgalley for the ARC

Former police detective Mark Spencer has had a tough year - once he was considered Liverpool's hero after taking down a serial killer, but one bad decision changed everything. He chose to help a member of the area's most notorious crime family and lost everything - his girlfriend, his job and his reputation.

When Mark wakes up next to a dead body, with no recollection of how he got there or whether he even killed the stranger, but he knows how his former team works - and that he has only a few days at most to clear his name.

This was my first book by Luca Veste and I quite enjoyed it! The book was full of twists and turns, but the only thing really that stops me making it a 5* book is that I'm not sure anyone was particularly likeable in it. 4*.

An outstanding and unputdownable read that will be one of my top reads of the year. A superb crime thriller
with tremendous characters,

I really enjoyed this read. It’s based around Mark who has been suspended from the police force but then finds himself in a very tricky situation - the main problem is who can he trust?

After being suspended most of the team haven’t kept in touch so he doesn’t know if he can trust them or whether they’ll just let him go to prison for something he hasn’t done.

I loved how it all unfolded and the twists along the way, I was on the edge of my seat towards the end. And I will admit that the ending was not what I was expecting!

I must say that I do also feel like it’s a bit of a teaser for what’s to come next and I hope I’m right!

4 Stars from me

Mark Fletcher is a respected detective, with a bit of a hero complex. He literally stops at nothing in his quest to help people and bring criminals to justice. 

Unfortunately, despite this, his latest attempts to do good have gone horribly wrong and he finds himself firmly in the murky underworld that he has fought so hard to clean up.

Faced with a series of unwinnable situations, and mortal danger at every turn it is hard to see how he can even begin to convince his old colleagues that he is innocent. Waking up next to a dead body isn't a good look for anyone, let alone a disgrace ex-cop. 

Friends and allies are thin on the ground, whereas enemies and traps seem to be there for him in abundance. This is a fast and exciting read that will satisfy fans of thrillers - it reminded me a little of the early Simon Kernick books - so if that's your bag then I think you'll enjoy this one.

My thanks to the author, Netgalley and Avon Books UK for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Once upon a time, Mark Fletcher is hailed as one of Liverpool’s finest detectives but a mistake made out of concern leads to an accusation of being in the pocket of one of the city’s most powerful and notorious crime gangs,the Bonuccis. His life is on the skids, reputation and home life are gone but it’s going to get a whole lot worse when he wakes in a hotel room next to a dead man with zero memory of how he gets there. The evidence strongly points to him but he knows he didn’t do it and so he has to prove it if he’s going to survive.

This is a well connected, gritty and dark mystery thriller with danger seemingly around every corner, with threats that are tangible and situations that go from bad to worse for Mark. At times there’s a sense of strong claustrophobia his understandable paranoia, and panic are palpable. His scattered thoughts and speculations about his circumstances are done very effectively. Mark is a flawed character but my sympathies head entirely in his direction because his heart is in the right place although he treads a very fine line in order to save himself. Other characters both within the police force and the OCG (Organised Crime Group) feel authentic with shades of Scarface and The Godfather with the latter, probably inevitably! It’s very good on the dynamics within the crime organisation with all its ambitions, envy and menace in plain sight.

Liverpool and its surroundings provide an atmospheric setting and are most effectively in the plot. It’s an immersive, tense, suspenseful and twisty read, feeling like an action movie because there’s never a dull moment. It ramps up towards the end where everything falls into place. To be continued.

Overall, if you’re into thrillers then this is a good, addictive one.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Avon Books U.K. for the much appreciated early copy in return for an honest review.

I’ve enjoyed Luca Veste’s previous books so I was happy to be able to read “Liar Liar”, his newest one, which is set in the city of Liverpool where many of his earlier novels were based.
Mark Fletcher is a suspended Police officer who has made some bad decisions but when he wakes up in a hotel room next to a dead body with no recollection of how he got there he knows that he is in big trouble. Unsure whether to call his ex colleagues or try and work out what has happened he makes the rash decision to go it alone which sends him running across Liverpool, not knowing whom to trust.
Running out of options and with the city’s biggest crime family on his heels he has to try and solve the murder before the police or the bad guys catch up with him.
This was a fast paced read which drew me in from the very first page and the descriptions of Liverpool really made the city come alive for me.
I liked Mark, a flawed character but someone who was trying to do the right thing. I also enjoyed reading about Jack, Murphy and Hashem, Mark’s former colleagues who were looking into another organised crime murder in one of the the houses owned by the “mafiaesque” family running the underworld of Liverpool. As the two cases coalesce, the story picks up pace and I raced to the end, wondering how it would all pan out for Mark.
The ending was a bit of a cliffhanger and I shall certainly be looking out for the next book in the series.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my advance copy.

After the death of a member of a well-known criminal family, Detective Mark Fletcher finds himself suspended from duty, accused of some level of involvement. Life for the detective is spiraling out of control so when he wakes up in a hotel room with no recollection of how he got there and a dead body next to him, survival instincts take over. He knows he didn’t do it, but how can he prove his innocence? With his former colleagues looking for him alongside members of the infamous Bonucci family, can Mark really trust anyone to help him uncover the truth?

Liar Liar is the first in a new series from Liverpool author, Luca Veste, set in his home city. Luca certainly draws on his knowledge of the city and his own Italian heritage to create a tense, gritty thriller which, at times, had me holding my breath. Mark Fletcher is a flawed character who, despite his shortcomings, you want to see succeed. Although I did not agree with some of the decisions he made, you could see how he felt totally isolated, not knowing who he could trust.

Fans of the author’s previous Liverpool series will be thrilled to see a couple of cameo appearances from some very familiar characters. One, in particular, I am really intrigued to see the role they play in future books. The plot is fast-paced and had me hooked right from the start. I was not sure where we would be by the end of the book and was totally blindsided by the ending.

This is Luca Veste at his best and I hope that this is the first of many books to come!

I thought this was a suspenseful read, meeting the promise of being a thriller and having the right balance of descriptiveness to twists.

Thank you Avon Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

Luca Veste was a brand new author for me, not only had I never read anything by him, I'd never heard of him either.

What a fantastic book Liar Liar was!! It drops you right into the action from page 1 and was full of twists and turns but was also a slow gradual story that just kept building. Each time I thought I knew where it was going, I'd be taken in a completely different direction. I read it mostly in big chunks as it was so difficult to put down.

I loved the authors style of writing the descriptions really painted a picture in my mind and brought the story to life for me.

I found the characters likeable, well most of them but there are a few you're not meant to. In particular, the 2 main police officers had good chemistry and an easy way between them.

I'll definitely be looking up Luca Veste's back catalogue as I need to read more by this author.

This was a gritty crime read that felt as though it had very established background with the characters backstories to the extent that it felt as though there had been a previous book on the series even though this is the first. Mark is suspended from the Police for breaking the rules when he tried to help a member of the problematic Bonucci family in the hope she would give him information to bring them down but it backfired badly when she was murdered. Months later he wakes up in a hotel with no knowledge of how he got there but is certain he wasn't the one who killed the man laying dead next to him.

This takes place over a short time frame but with some flashbacks to explain how he found himself in this situation. Meanwhile his former colleagues Kirkham and Hesham are trying very hard to do everything by the book when investigating a body found buried in a back garden. There's some great descriptions of the different parts of Liverpool and the family dynamics within the Bonucci family add to the drama with two grandsons vying for their place at the head. As this mostly focuses on Mark's struggle to unravel what has happened and vindicate himself it does have a different feel to most crime reads but does make for a good series start. This definitely didn't go how I expected so I found it quite shocking in parts and it's definitely set up well for the next book.

Liar Liar is a gritty crime thriller set in Liverpool and centred on disgraced Detective Mark Fletcher .There is danger round every corner the Italian Crime Mob that rule Liverpool are chasing Mark. I know this is the first book in the series but I did feel that I had missed things from a previous book .At times the plot is suspenseful and exciting with an ending that suggests more is to come .Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC

This is the first book I've read from Luca Veste and it definitely won't be the last. I really liked the writing style and it did keep me intrigued throughout. A couple of parts of the ending didn't really hit for me but I definitely didn't see the twist coming. Overall this was a very enjoyable read.

If you like fast paced thrillers that keep you guessing this one's for you

Huge thank you to the author, Netgalley, and the publisher for the ARC