A review by moonpie
Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

4.0

Right off the bat I was aware that all the players in Company of Liars were lying, according to the back cover copy of my ARC. I assumed "all the players" included the narrator, and spent a portion of my reading time trying to figure out what made this narrator unreliable. Was it just the nature of his trade? In the end, most of the twists/lies were predictable and easily guessed if you were paying attention, though a few surprised me.

Maitland created some interesting characters, and I enjoyed getting to know the majority of them. I liked (if that's the right word (it's not)) the way the Plague seemed almost to be a character on its own. The story kept me interested and I made my way through the novel pretty quickly, although by the time I was three-quarters done the ROCKS FALL EVERYONE DIES* feel of the story started slowing me down a bit. I was happy to get to the end and know that I wouldn't have to deal with any more unhappy endings; if the writing hadn't been as solid as it was, I probably would have stopped earlier than the end, just because I'm not in a tragedy kind of mood right now.

*This is not a spoiler, rocks do not actually fall and everyone does not die.


(three-and-a-half stars)