Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spare Me the Truth | 2016 | C.J. Carver | Buy |
| 2 | Know Me Now | 2017 | C.J. Carver | Buy |
| 3 | Tell Me a Lie | 2017 | C.J. Carver | Buy |
Dan Forrester is piecing his life back together after the death of his son when a stranger approaches him in a supermarket and tells him everything he remembers is a lie. That opening sets the tone for C.J. Carver’s trilogy of thrillers that mix espionage, police work, and psychological tension.
Spare Me the Truth was nominated for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel. The book weaves together three storylines: Forrester’s shattered memories, a disgraced Met detective hunting a serial killer in a provincial posting, and a woman whose mother’s sudden death leads to a staggering act of blackmail. Reviewers compared it to Jason Bourne crossed with a police procedural.
The sequels, Know Me Now and Tell Me a Lie, continue to follow Forrester as he digs deeper into his hidden past and the people who manipulated it. Carver keeps the pace fast and the reveals frequent, with each book layering new conspiracies onto the foundation laid in the first.