Black Lies by Mercedes Mercier

Publisher's Synopsis

Only a handful of inmates in Westmead Prison have committed crimes so atrocious that they've been locked away for life, and for fifteen years, convicted murderer Tomas Kovak has refused to disclose where he hid the body of his victim, a vulnerable young woman.

When Kovak is diagnosed with terminal cancer, intense pressure is put on Dr Laura Fleming, criminal psychologist, to find the location of Kovak's victim so her grieving family can find some sort of closure.

Laura has to use all of her training, skills and instinct to form a connection with the cold, remorseless killer, a man who has refused any psychological assessment since the day he confessed to the murder.

With every session, Laura becomes more and more convinced that something about Kovak's story doesn't ring true, and as his health rapidly deteriorates, the pressure on Laura ramps up. She becomes increasingly desperate, resorting to unconventional methods to find out what she can from the secretive man.

As she inches closer to the truth, she discovers some people will stop at nothing to keep the past hidden ... and the people Laura cares most about are fair game.

Excerpt

Cassie Walker was murdered fifteen years ago, but I still remember the shock I felt when I heard about her death. Just twenty-seven years old and heavily pregnant, Cassie didn’t come home from work one evening. Her colleagues had seen her leave the restaurant soon after ten, presumably on her way to catch the bus home like she always did. For four long weeks, this pretty young girl with blue eyes, chestnut hair and a swollen belly was on the front page of every newspaper, plastered on news sites and discussed on talk shows across the country.

And then, Tomas Kovak confessed to murdering her. The forty-five-year-old son of Slovakian immigrants had walked into his local police station and turned himself in. Completely remorseless. He’d been walking home from the pub that night, he said, and he’d seen Cassie waiting at the  bus stop alone. He’d offered to sit with her until the bus came, to keep her safe. She’d been polite but firm in her refusal. He’d offered again, saying he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart, insisting he was protecting her. Again, she said no. That annoyed him. Couldn’t she see how defenceless she was? An attractive young woman waiting all alone in the dark? She warned him if he didn’t leave her alone she’d call the cops. That had been it; Kovak had snapped. Who was she to deny him? And not only deny his offer of help but threaten him. As Cassie turned away to find her phone he’d hit her once on the back of the head. She’d collapsed, and he’d dragged her limp body behind the bus shelter. He’d waited until she’d regained consciousness before he strangled her, he said.

My review of Black Lies by Mercedes Mercier

It’s been fifteen years since Tomas Kovak was convicted of an appalling murder and was sent away to Westmead Prison, never to be released. He had walked into a police station to confess his crime but has always to reveal the location of the body of his victim. Now he’s dying with only weeks to live and the family wants the location before he dies. Criminal psychologist Dr Laura Fleming has been assigned the task of getting this man to talk.

Laura Fleming takes the command from her boss to get the information from Kovak by doing whatever it takes. She has no problem bending the rules to breaking point, she’s done it before and has always been able to get results. Even though Kovak has never spoken to a psych before, she seems to be able to have the knack for gaining the trust of even the toughest nuts.

But the more Kovak reveals to her, the less inclined she is to believe that he’s actually the killer. This is far from the brief she’s given and pressure is placed on her to concentrate on finding out the location of the body. But when she pushes, Kovak retreats from her, refusing any more contact.

Is he the killer? Will Laura be able to speak to him again? Is the real killer out there somewhere roaming free?

There’s a strange dichotomy going on when it comes to the personality of Laura Fleming. She’s touted as being one of the best criminal psychologists available, able to get into the mind of the criminal. Yet she has all sorts of trouble speaking to her colleagues and her daughter in any meaningful way. She’s virtually paralysed by any kind of confrontation and can’t provide coherent arguments to her boss when it comes time to back up her theories as a professional practitioner. It felt like this, more than anything else, hampered the smooth flow of the story and created unnecessary obstacles to finding the truth. 

The jeopardy built into the story comes from the dying man, Tomas Kovac and the question of whether Laura will get the truth from him before he’s gone. She grows increasingly desperate as time diminishes and pushes a little harder than she ordinarily might. There’s real drama created with the real possibility that there may be a real killer running around concerned that his identity may be revealed.

I enjoyed the many levels of uncertainty built into the story which ensured that there was never a time when I knew how the story was going to end. There were as many as three possible killers within Laura’s orbit and, still, I was way off when they were unmasked, so kudos for that.

My main problem came from the speed with which Laura switches from organised professional to reckless renegade and back again. Her disregard for the safety of herself and her daughter didn’t make sense and felt as though it was fabricated to artificially build the tension. A more consistent temperament would have been far more believable.

That being said, I enjoyed being taken into the prison system by an author who has clearly experienced the process firsthand. The authentic exchanges between inmate and psych professional was compelling and wholly believable.

Black Lies is a strong follow up to White Noise and benefitted from a strong plot complete with a number of well-concealed red herrings and an exciting conclusion.