Liz Nugent is an absolute genius. Since her debut Irish crime writing with Unraveling Oliver, she has enjoyed global acclaim and now, she is stepping into the US market with her newest novel, Lying In Wait. This new release is just as gripping and wondrous as her first venture. With the blend of sharp intellect paired with her astounding insight, Nugent never fails to leave a distinct mark. The brilliant element of Lying In Wait is that it is not constrained within the box of being likable only to seasoned fans; readers new to Nugent will fall in love with her prose.
Good luck finding another psychological suspense author with the immaculate demeanor and fluency of prose that Nugent possesses. The clean to the point language she uses captures ordinary humans in such a bold manner that it is impossible to discard the novel as a casual summer read. Although shocking and astounding, Lying In Wait is the opposite of gory. It stunningly highlights the tragic capacity of desperate, ordinary people to commit heinous crimes. A must read for the summer of 2018.
Lyign in Wait is undoubtedly an unputdownable psychological thriller, laced with secrets of a Dublin family, that stays with you long after reading the last line.
At first glance, Lydia Fitzsimons has everything. She is the wife of a successful and well-respected judge, the mother of a loving son and lives in a beautiful house in Dublin, but things aren’t always as perfect as they appear. That seemingly delightful house has a hold of dark secret, and when it’s uncovered by Lydia’s son Laurence, it sets off a chain of events that lead to a disturbing and dark finale.
With a book as riveting as this one is, it becomes challenging to discern where to start my analysis, so let’s begin with the title. Nugent’s first book, which was also an Oliver book, was titled UNRAVELING OLIVER, and I loved it, although I understand why this book did not meet the expectations of some readers. Unlike many of the psychological thrillers it was compared to in 2017, UNRAVELING OLIVER is not (and, I’d venture to guess, was never intended to be) a twisty-turny, shocking tale of a psychological conundrum and that’s not a negative at all. UNRAVELING OLIVER is what it is: a razor-sharp and deeply unsettling abusive character study of an husband. What transformed him into this?
How did an isolated young child develop into a frighteningly manipulative man? Nugent’s exceptional skill at unraveling her story’s title character made UNRAVELING OLIVER so remarkable but it also made the center of UNRAVELING OLIVER change from the rest of summer blink and you miss thrillers. For those readers who found themselves a tad disappointed with this novel, I suggest you have another look at LYING IN WAIT.
(If you loved UNRAVELING OLIVER, you will hold LYING IN WAIT in the same regard as well.) Nugent’s second novel brilliantly blends the emotional nuance of UNRAVELING OLIVER with a more engaging and straightforward plot structure crafted around a twist or two. Long story short, it has everything one would ever want.
What sets LYING IN WAIT apart from the numerous psychological suspense novels released in the Spring/Summer of 2018 is the author’s profoundly sharpened insights. The short pacing, dazzling cover, and brief chapters were just the icing on the cake. This novel does not offer thrills interspersed with horrifying serial killers, but is every bit as thought provoking and captivating. The author achieves this feat as a result of her precise evaluation of human nature. Nugent expertly nosedives into humanity’s dark abyss and severs the nasty strings that exist within all of us. The weakness, the greed, and the possessiveness deep down all of us stem from traits that we loathe to admit but reality proves otherwise, especially in the unfathomable depths of LYING IN WAIT.
In this pivotal chapter, Nugent examines the memoirs containing tragic and brutal events focusing mainly on people being people: following their own self-interests and thoughts of protecting themselves and their families while taking the easiest route available unorder to achieve what they feel they’re entitled to. An author who can take such an understated premise and make it profoundly compelling is to be commended.
Moving on to those very aspects of humanity where light should not be shed on, it should not be surprising to readers that Nugent superbly writes unsympathetic characters in an extremely likable fashion. This book will not give you your new favorite crime-fiction protagonist or mate, but it does offer a masterclass on how to craft well-developed, thoroughly complex anti-heroines. Lydia Fitzsimons is the core, she is a woman who appears to have everything a beautiful mansion in Dublin, a judge husband with an admirable career, and a son whom she totally worships. Seems perfect, right? What could possibly go wrong? Well, after Lydia’s husband murders a young girl, she finds herself caught in a storm full of secrets and betrayal and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. However, Lydia is anything but the traditional distressed wife figure.
Nugent gives Lydia the kind of complexity a “wife” in a modern domestic thriller should possess. She is neither a victim nor willing to stand by as her family’s world is destroyed. Additionally, she will do anything to prevent her son from getting anywhere close to the secrets that the family’s stunning house hides. As the webs of deceit and the central crime escalate, the readers witness the trauma-induced slow but spectacular demise of the main character. The decline is gradual and calculated, and primary parts of it are induced to evoke an unexpected end. This multi-dimensional character of Lydia evokes deep rooted emotions due to the suspense and fear of suffocation, and in the end, readers of LYING IN WAIT will adore and despise this mother figure in equal measure.
One of the greatest aspects of Nugent’s work is how meticulously she captures the “life cycle” of crime through her writing. Unlike many crime writers, Nugent does not place a beginning at the site of the crime, or at the resolution of the case. Instead, she analyses everything in and around it.
She looks into the underlying reasons that motivated her characters’ actions, She studies the details of the crime, She looks at the consequences of the crime as it spreads from the victim and the criminal to other family members and friends, and so on. She does it meticulously, and I must say, it is a knack that leaves one in awe. Lets not forget the fact that Nugent does all of this in 320 pages: the detailed character studies, the gripping plot, and the wonderfully broad analysis of a crime. What a wonderful gift, without a doubt.
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