The Lady Has Questions

She’s spent nineteen years reading liars. Today she meets one who reads back.
A gripping, character‑driven crime thriller set in Charlotte, The Lady Has Questions follows Detective Sheryl Watson — a woman who has spent nineteen years learning how to read liars — as she steps into the interrogation room with a man who has spent his entire career studying unstable minds.

When psychology professor Jim Washam is arrested in connection with four unsolved strangulations, Watson enters the box with one goal: make him comfortable enough to reveal what he doesn’t realize he’s giving away. Washam, calm to the point of clinical detachment, sits across from her like a man waiting for a job interview — hands folded, pulse steady, already cataloguing the room. As Watson watches him through the glass, she thinks of the victims, “Kayla Ruiz. Denise Oliver. Priya Anand. Meredith Voss.”

But Washam isn’t just a suspect. He’s an expert in the very behavior she’s trained to detect — a man who once published a paper describing a strangulation detail “never released to press… never once left the room where four autopsies had been performed.” And he’s looking forward to meeting her.

Complicating everything is defense attorney Alan Rafferty — Watson’s former almost‑something — who arrives determined to believe his client is innocent. As the clock runs, Watson must navigate the case, the man across the table, and the man walking into the room to defend him.

Taut, intelligent, and emotionally sharp, The Lady Has Questions blends procedural precision with psychological tension. Fans of Tana French, Michael Connelly, and Karin Slaughter will devour this slow‑burn interrogation thriller where every silence is a weapon — and every detail matters.