A Tissue of Lies by CD Wilsher

A tragic ghost from the past upends the life of a veteran lawyer in A Tissue of Lies by CD Wilsher.

Frank Connor is a lawyer who has spent his career defending murderers, but when he finds himself on the wrong side of an ex-client’s death vengeful spree, it feels like the small mistakes of his past are closing in. Connor begins digging into the old case, trying to protect or defend himself, but only ends up finding more questions and dead ends, as well as the whiff of a cover-up. When the freshly released and heavily financed Tyrell Sikes ends up dead, the suspicion falls squarely on Frank’s shoulders. With gritty elements of a procedural police drama, as well as a slowly unraveling whodunit, this story is a spiraling mystery that keeps readers on their toes.

The dialogue rings with authenticity throughout most of the book, capturing the pace, patterns, and occasional banality of conversations and investigations, while the plot itself is a tangle of loose ends, but a pleasure to dig through. However, the narration is frequently too blunt, with an excess of italicized internal monologue, which can seem over-explanatory. There is also a lack of emotional language; most of the prose is matter-of-fact, and when there are descriptions, they are merely informational, and not as visceral as required for a thriller.

Granted, this fits with the investigative tone of the story, and the pragmatic personality of the protagonist, but it does leave some of the scenes a bit flat. That being said, the last quarter of the novel is a thrilling rush, and Wilsher’s writing hits suspenseful peaks precisely when it needs to, ultimately making A Tissue of Lies a gripping and unpredictable ride.