The Promise of a Lie - Hardcover

Roughan, Howard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446529435 ISBN 13: 9780446529433

Publisher: Warner Books, 2004

Synopsis

Howard Roughan’s debut, The Up and Comer, was hailed as one of the most hip and entertaining thrillers of the year. Now Roughan returns at full stride with a scintillating novel of deception that begins when a gifted young psychologist becomes entangled in the life of a beautiful and calculating patient.

THE PROMISE OF A LIE

Nothing can prepare Dr. David Remler for the shocking phone call he receives from a patient named Samantha Kent. Stunned and anxious to help, he rushes out into the Manhattan night to keep a bloody act of violence from spinning further out of control.

He knows he is too involved, that he’s crossed a line, and that his professional reputation is at stake. But he has no idea what awaits him at his destination...that he’s become a pawn in a very deadly game of revenge.

Suddenly the focus of a criminal case that flares into an out-of-control media circus, David has only one shot to clear his name. But first he has to clear up the mystery of his patient, "Samantha Kent." Just who is she? And why did she choose to involve David? Little by little, the outlines of a brilliant plot emerge—and, with it, the horrifying power of a single lie…

In this richly textured tale of a man’s battle against the mother of all manipulations, the perfect setup is even more diabolical than it looks.

About this title

About the Author

Howard Roughan lives in Weston, Connecticut.

From the Inside Flap

Howard Roughan's debut, The Up and Comer, was hailed as one of the most hip and entertaining thrillers of the year. Now Roughan returns at full stride with a scintillating novel of deception that begins when a gifted young psychologist becomes entangled in the life of a beautiful and calculating patient.

THE PROMISE OF A LIE

Nothing can prepare Dr. David Remler for the shocking phone call he receives from a patient named Samantha Kent. Stunned and anxious to help, he rushes out into the Manhattan night to keep a bloody act of violence from spinning further out of control.

He knows he is too involved, that he's crossed a line, and that his professional reputation is at stake. But he has no idea what awaits him at his destination...that he's become a pawn in a very deadly game of revenge.

Suddenly the focus of a criminal case that flares into an out-of-control media circus, David has only one shot to clear his name. But first he has to clear up the mystery of his patient, Samantha Kent. Just who is she? And why did she choose to involve David? Little by little, the outlines of a brilliant plot emerge and, with it, the horrifying power of a single lie

In this richly textured tale of a man's battle against the mother of all manipulations, the perfect setup is even more diabolical than it looks.

Reviews

Roughan (The Up and Comer) delivers a classic frame-up story, cleverly embellished and stocked with well-drawn albeit familiar genre characters (the sharply observant narrator, the black widow seductress, the bad cop and the less-bad cop) in his second slick page-turner. Narrator David Remler is a successful New York psychologist and the author of a book that explains how upstanding citizens can sometimes commit unspeakable crimes. He inadvertently launched his book onto the bestseller lists when he gave expert testimony in the trial of a rabbi accused of murdering his mistress; jurors cited his testimony as crucial to their decision to convict. Otherwise, we're told, they never would have imagined that a man of the cloth could do anything so horrible (perhaps this was written before the news broke about the recent scandal in the Roman Catholic Church). Still, the setup is clear and the plot full of satisfying poetic justice. Remler, a fine, sympathetic, kind and educated man who has profited from showing the world that anyone is capable of performing terrible deeds at any time, soon finds himself on the point of his own sword. He's accused of murder. His alibi stinks. A sticky web of circumstantial evidence ensnares him, and we watch as Remler's lawyers try to cut him loose. The novel is smoothly written, briskly paced and nicely constructed, with surprises that are genuinely startling.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

David Remler, a successful and talented psychologist, takes on a new patient. Samantha Kent is the beautiful, troubled wife of a Wall Street businessman; she is afraid of him and sometimes even feels like she wants to kill him. Then, early one morning, Remler gets a distressed phone call that leads him to three rather unsettling discoveries. One, Sam Kent's husband is dead: murdered. Two, the woman he knew as Sam Kent is not the murdered man's wife. And three, Remler is being framed for murder. Roughan's second novel (after The Up and Comer, 2001) is compulsively readable: sharply drawn characters, dialogue that seems effortlessly realistic, and a solid, suspenseful story. The author doesn't write with any special flair, but that's OK: this story doesn't need any. A smart, thoroughly engaging thriller. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Warner Books
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446529435
• ISBN 13: 9780446529433
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 364