Review: Two Truths and a Lie: A Thriller by Mark Stevens

 

Two Truths and a Lie: A Thriller by Mark Stevens is the second book in the series that began with No Lie Lasts Forever. Billed as a sequel, it is in some senses. In others, it is more a continuation of the first book as those events are predominant through the entirety of this book. Therefore, while I am trying to minimize spoilers, some are present in this review. Suffice it to say, if you continue reading about this very good book, don’t blame the reviewer.

 

As the book begins, the trial of Harry Kugel is underway. Harry Kugel was the man known locally as the “PDQ” killer. He had killed several times decades earlier and then went dark for many years. His ego brought him down as recent murders had been reminiscent of his work. He did not like the fact that somebody was taking credit now off of his legacy. He wanted the imposter gone. So, he reached out to TV Reporter Flynn Martin who is a bit of a legend, for good and bad reasons, in Denver. Ultimately, she survived, and the man who put her and others through hell was identified and exposed by her reporting. A little over a year later, he has finally been convicted for what he has done and was sentenced to three consecutive life terms.

 

Seconds before he is taken off to jail and then to prison from the courtroom, he turns to her and promises that nothing is over.

 

Several months later, long after she and her son, Wyatt, moved to a more secure home high in a Denver tower, and just when she finally feels like things are going back to a quasi-normal, the terror of being stalked and a target begins again. It has been a long day in the field with camera operator and good friend, Tamica Porter, as she sits and goes through paperwork her teen son brought home from school. Amidst the normal stuff is a sealed envelope that scares her at the sight of it. She’s moved and taken drastic measures for privacy. All that seems to have been for naught as she opens the envelope and finds a single white sheet of paper.

 

That single white sheet of paper is full of cryptic sentences very reminiscent what PDQ used to send her. But, he is in prison, so he can’t be terrorizing her again this way. Or could he? Does the prison even look at anything he mails out? Or did he have an unknown accomplice? Or is it one of his cult members drawn to act by the extensive media coverage of the trial and her role in his capture? Or is it some whack job looking to impress PDQ? These questions and others terrorize her as it is clear that somebody got close enough to her son to send a message.

 

A message that scares her in every fiber of her being, while at the same time, intrigues and pulls her into another very high-profile story. A story that could easily get her and others killed. Which could also be said about some of the other stories she is soon working on, including the disappearance of a local family of four.

 

Two Truths and a Lie: A Thriller by Mark Stevens again takes readers to Denver, the world of journalism, and the debate over which stories and which victims get media coverage. Published by Thomas & Mercer, this read is another good one in the series and a bit more intense than No Lie Lasts Forever. This read builds on that book extensively and keeps the momentum going as it very clearly sets up a third book in the series.

 

Both books are strongly recommended as is reading them in order. Not only are the stories in the reads strong, but one is also given plenty to think about regarding actual journalism, the media, and what goes on these days.

  

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3NSRghi

 

By the way, The Poisoned Pen Bookstore has a recent interview with author Mark Stevens where he discusses the book. The program is on YouTube here.

 

 

My digital ARC reading copy came by way of the publisher, Thomas & Mercer, through NetGalley, with no expectation of a positive review. 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2026

Review: No Lie Lasts Forever: A Thriller by Mark Stevens

  

Mark Steven’s last book, The Fireballer, was a very good book. It was very good, even though he did not have my team, the Texas Rangers, present in the read that much and even had the wrong team winning the World Series. That book touched on many things, not just baseball, and like his Allison Coil Mystery series, was a mighty good read. So, when Mark Sevens let me know he had a new book coming out and offered me a reading copy, even though with my worsening health and everything else here I had no idea if I would ever get to read it, I eventually accepted the offer.

No Lie Lasts Forever: A Thriller takes readers to Denver in a complicated tale of mystery, murder, treachery, and a lot more. Reporter Flynn Martin, a television icon, is our heroine. Her dad was a legendary newspaper reporter in Denver and the proverbial apple fell right at the base of that tree. It is supposed to be her day off as the book opens.

 

But, her boss has reached out as a gunman is holding hostages and wants a television reporter to be a go between for him and the police. Flynn was not his choice, but she is available, and he will accept her as the go between, if she agrees. Even though these days she is more known for her projects on climate change and think pieces, she has a long history on the police beat and has many contacts.

 

Grudgingly, with lives at stake, she gets involved only to have things go horribly wrong through no fault of her own. In the violent and deadly aftermath, she takes a lot of heat internally and publicly from the police and average folks who have an opinion, shaped by the storm of media coverage at rival networks and elsewhere, of what she did that fateful day. Suspended and flooded with grief, she would like to be left alone to cope with what has happened.

 

Instead, a long dormant serial killer decides he is going to involve her in his quest to set the record straight. He wants credit for the three successful, as he sees it, kills he got away with many years ago and how he has behaved since. He does not want anyone placing a murder he did not commit on him. PDQ was a legend in Denver and some believe he is back killing again. He isn’t and wants his legend intact and not desecrated by an imposter. He is very mad about somebody doing a very poor job of copying him and wants Flynn to prove it wasn’t him. She is supposed to do that without involving anyone else whether it be coworkers, family, or the police.

 

While the initial goal of preserving his legacy might have been achievable, his ego drives him, as it does Flynn, and numerous other people in this read. Mistakes and assumptions are made and things quite rapidly escalate for everyone. A violent collision was and is inviable with its own rippling aftermath.

 

No Lie Lasts Forever: A Thriller by Mark Stevens is one heck of a read. Multifaceted and moving forward at a rapid pace, Flynn finds herself deeper and deeper into a nightmare. It also reinforces my long held personal belief that leaving the house is often a very bad idea in many more ways than one. 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/44zuNMa

 

 

My print ARC was provided by the author with no expectation of a review. As it happens, the read was selected for the Amazon First Reads this month. That means, until the end of the month, the digital version of the read is free for Amazon Prime members, and $1.99 for other readers. Published by Thomas & Mercer, the book comes out on June 1^st.

 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2025

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Black River by Mathew Spencer

Matthew Spencer is an Australian journalist who worked for The Australian for twenty years in multiple roles including running the Foreign News desk and serving as Opinion Editor. He has written for newspapers and magazines in Uganda and Kenya and been published in The Australian Financial Review and The Sydney Morning Herald. His fiction debut Black River was published by Allen and Unwin in June 2022 and by Thomas & Mercer in July 2023.

Black River was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction in 2023, and it won the 2023 Danger Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction. The Danger Awards recognize crime fiction books showcasing Australia in the setting, which Black River certainly does.

When another dead girl was found wrapped in black plastic at an exclusive boys’ school in the Sydney suburbs during the Christmas holidays, popular belief was that the Blue Moon Killer had claimed another victim. Rose Riley, the sergeant assigned to homicide chief Steve O’Neil as part of the task force trying to identify the serial killer responsible for two deaths already, was on the scene with the rest of the forensic team.

Also present was Adam Bowman, a general assignment reporter for a floundering newspaper, whose editor knew Bowman had attended the school and expected him to find a way around the blockades set up by the police to obtain exclusive photographs. Bowman did not disappoint and his stock with his employer shot up, much to the disgust of the crime beat reporter who was striking out in his attempts to get information.

Riley and Bowman cross paths on the school campus and they both try to take advantage of the other’s specialized knowledge to further their career goals.

While I really dislike the current trend of serial killer crime fiction, the serial killer aspect was secondary to the details of the criminal investigation and to the journalistic angles. The dual points of view give simultaneous insight into the police work and into the operations of a traditional newsroom. The choice of the sergeant instead of the lead detective as protagonist is original, just as the selection of a second-string reporter instead of the star crime beat writer is.

As usual, I had to look up the occasional Australian vernacular or catchphrase. And the multiple references to the summer weather over Christmas holidays was disorienting. The Australian landscape is a key part of the book’s context. 

Kirkus (May 1, 2023) liked this edgy, somber piece of crime fiction with a surprise ending, calling it “An engaging police procedural with a little something extra.” The second book in the series is scheduled for publication in August 2024 in Australia and in June 2025 in the U.S.

·         Publisher: ‎Thomas & Mercer (July 1, 2023)

·         Language: English

·         Paperback: ‎303 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1662510063

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1662510069

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3yrEHRZ

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

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Review: Scuffletown: A Willie Black Mystery by Howard Owen

Scuffletown: A Willie Black Mystery by Howard Owen is the seventh book in The Willie Black Mystery Series that began with Oregon Hill. For readers new to this series, this is a series that is best read in order as the characters age, relationships change, and much like in the real world, the past is always present and not always in a good way.

It is a lovely afternoon in early April as the book opens and Scuffletown Park is about to be in the news in a big way. A small park surrounded by homes and apartments, it is where Willie Black and the first of four wives started their lives as young married people. Based on the amount of blood splashed across one of the brick walkways, something did go down the night before. The cops had been called out around midnight for a fight of some sort. Upon their arrival, there was nobody in the park. They certainly did not find a body in the dark park and never saw the blood on the bricks. With no body and no signs of a struggle or anything amiss, they soon packed up and moved on to other crimes in the city.

It was not until this morning, a Thursday, that it became clear something bad had gone down in the old park. A jogger cutting through by way of the alley that runs down on side of the park called the cops after he saw the massive amount of blood on the brick stones. Despite a thorough search and spending hours at what clearly is a crime scene, the police still do not have a weapon, a body, or any evidence of an actual crime.

That soon changes when a video, taken by a resident, suddenly turns up. A video that clears shows Willie’s friend and roommate, Abe Custalow, clearly standing over what appears to be a dead man. Almost everyone at the paper, on the police force, and at various local watering holes, knows that Abe has a bedroom in Willie Black’s condo unit. Abe is family and that has not changed. What has changed is that he is now a suspect and the police are looking hard for him. Abe has a criminal record, one that is far more complicated than it would appear from a dry read of the facts. Willie is absolutely positive that Abe did not do this no matter what one can see on a video.

Even though, from the start, Abe wants nothing done on his behalf, Willie begins digging into what Abe has been doing lately and what could have happened in the park. Even though Abe and almost everybody else wants him to stay out of it, reporter Willie Black is not about to stop in his quest to save Abe from himself. Before long he is risking his job, his life, and even his friendship with Abe to prove that his old friend did not do the crime. He does so because the past always matters.

This installment of a complicated series is yet another very good read. While the primary storyline is the case as outlined above, there are ongoing secondary storylines at work that continue previous events from earlier books. The result is another complicated read of complex characters, family drama, and plenty of mystery.

This is a really good series and one that should be read in order. Scuffletown: A Willie Black Mystery by Howard Owen is highly recommended.

The series to this point and my reviews:

Oregon Hill (June 14, 2019)

The Philadelphia Quarry (July 19, 2019)

Parker Field (September 2019)

The Bottom (October 4, 2019)

Grace (November 15, 2019)

The Devil’s Triangle (January 10, 2020)

My reading copy came from the Timberglen Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2020

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