Reading With Tyler

Name: The Liar
Series: Eddie Flynn #3
Author: Steve Cavanagh
Publisher: Headline
Format: Kindle
Genres:  Adult, Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary, Crime, Legal Thriller
Noted Tropes: High Stakes, Red Herring
Steam or Spice: None

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Review:

The Liar is Book 3 in the Eddie Flynn series by Steve Cavanagh – as such there are likely to be spoilers for the previous books below. I will hide any spoilers for The Liar as per normal. Onto the review!

Have I read many legal thrillers? No. I haven’t. Steve Cavanagh however is responsible for my desire to dive into the world of legal thrillers! I always thought those long series that follow a detective and a new case seemed rather boring when I was younger. Purely because I just expected each book to be very similar just a different case… I never gave them a chance.

Then queue my enjoyment of true crime podcasts and shows and my tip toe into the world of court room live feeds and I found myself reintroduced to the world of legal thrillers only now as an adult, I was much more willing to try them out. Steve Cavanagh may have been the first I stumbled upon, but I am not even remotely upset about it.

The Liar is book 3 in the Eddie Flynn series, which means I have now read the fisrt 4 books (reminder: I read Thirteen not realising initially that it was actually part of a series) and it is safe to say I am hooked. Cavanagh has a strategy for these books that works well for him. That said, they’re never the same. His twists and characters provide a very different legal case each time and so far they’ve all been hits. Thirteen remains my favourite but The Liar was damn good and almost unseated Thirteen as my favourite (ultimately the whole killer on the Jury thing is still just too cool to not be the winning book so far).

In The Liar, Eddie is faced with a case that is very similar to one we’ve already read about – someone’s daughter has been kidnapped. Sound familiar? It should! Eddie’s own daughter was kidnapped in book 1, The Defence, which means when an old family friend calls him up to ask for help saving his own daughter Eddie knows exactly what it feels like and says yes to the case.

I really enjoyed the fact that even though the kidnapped daughter element is a repeat of book 1, it felt so fresh and so different in The Liar. Eddie’s own family played very little part in this book – except for his wife’s annoyance with him taking another dangerous case (which I think at this point is just part and parcel of Eddie’s life…) but his love for his own family is what drove him to do everything he could for this old family friend.

As mentioned already, Cavanagh is a master at twists. Not only tht, but he’s great at making you think you’ve got it all figured out only to throw something else at you. Honestly this has happened in every book so far, I don’t know why for even a moment I let myself think I’ve figured it out!! And I love that. I love feeling like i’m solving it with all the same information that Eddie is solving the case almost in real time. As each piece of new information comes up, I use it to assess my current working theory and keep reading while Eddie does the same thing… It’s such a great time reading these books.

And like I said, every single one has been a hit so far. Eddie Flynn has become a staple part of my month, and I’m having to spread this series out over the months (even though I have debated on multiple occassions just binging the series) because I love these books as breaks between my fantasy books and because I don’t have another go to legal thriller series, Eddie Flynn is currently my only option! But believe me, the desire to binge it and spend 24 hours just reading Eddie Flynn is definitely there…

If you’ve picked up this series, please let me know which one is your favourite (without spoilers) and also if there are other books you’d recommend that are similar to Eddie Flynn, please let me know because I fear I stumbled into Steve Cavanagh on accident and I don’t know how lucky I’ll get again!! I am very much looking forward to looking at Steve Cavanagh’s other works because I know he’s written more than just the Eddie Flynn series, once I’m all caught up and need something else to use as my fantasy break!

The Liar is an easy 5 star read, I loved it. I almost made it a 6 star read, but Thirteen is still (in my opinion) better and so currently Thirteen is the only one who has made it into 6 star territory. I am very much looking forward to Book 5 Liar Liar!

“The victories are sweet and soon forgotten, but the mistakes stay with you forever.”