Believe Me – JP Delaney

IN THE latest thriller from The Girl Before author Delaney, an out-of-work actress is forced to become a ‘honey trap’ seductress in order to fund her rent and drama classes.

Working for suspicious wives, Clare specialises in chatting up men in bars to discover whether they will cheat on their spouses.

The morning after her latest case her wealthy client is found dead – and the apparently obsessive husband becomes the prime suspect.

The police force Clare to continue her fictional role, working her way into the husband’s affections in the hope he might confess to being a murderer.

Clare finds herself falling for the man - but that’s just one of several complications in this excellent psychological thriller.

There are lots of surprises as the story grows ever more dark and intense, along with a couple of massive twists that send the story off in a whole new direction.

Bearing superficial similarities with 1990s movie thrillers like Basic Instinct and Body of Evidence, this novel could have so easily been stuffed with sex scenes in order to qualify as an ‘erotic thriller’.

But the writing is far better than that, creating thoroughly believable characters to drive a plot given depth and credibility by Delaney’s cast-iron understanding of both psychology and acting technique.

Gripping right up to the last page, this novel is screaming out for the big screen treatment.

David Knights