NOVEL
CRITIC'S CHOICE
Consider the plight of Lachlan Harriot, former physician, stay-at-home dad and husband to Susie, a psychiatrist convicted of murdering" a patient who was a self-confessed serial killer. Desperate to help with an appeal, the ego-driven Lachlan combs his wife's office for evidence while she's languishing in jail—only to uncover layers of deceit. Meanwhile, 11 the Glasgow tabloids hound him like "lovesick school girls," demanding interviews and splashing photos of his overripe belly and unkempt hair.
Presented as a sequence of Lachlan's diary entries, Deception is as much an intriguing character study as it is an expertly plotted mystery. Lachlan maybe horrified by the possibility that his wife had fallen for the sociopath she apparently offed, but that hardly prevents him from obsessing over a new Armani coat, the therapeutic value of marzipan or the erotic potential of the 18-year-old au pair. Mina, a Scot whose books have been described as "Tartan Noir," impressively balances a novel of unnerving suspense with the uncommon pleasure of being inside Lachlan's unreliable, charmingly vain and appallingly funny head.
