Book Genre: British Literature, European Literature, Fantasy, Fiction, Historical, Historical Fiction, Horror, Medieval, Mystery, Thriller Despite some of these familiar undertones; Maitland’s text is not predictable or overly foreshadowed. Therein lays a healthy amount of drama with the need to know what happens next. However, there are some much too dramatized and unbelievable moments. These aren’t too excessive but when they are apparent, they sadly take a bit away from the story. Ellis keeps us in suspense and curious about Pagone, mostly by having us see her involvement in plots and crimes through the eyes of determined FBI agent Jane McCoy. There’s also enough high-level corruption to keep a roomful of paranoid investigators busy. Undeniably, “Company of Liars” has a fairy tale foundation with recognizable elements (trolls, witches, wolves) but on an adult level (for example: robbers living under bridges that collect tolls --- clear a troll). Again though, don’t expect a fantasy novel as “Company of Liars” is certainly not that; but there are subtle hints of childhood tales from the dark side. Although the villain of the piece was obvious to me, the ambiguity of what the villain represents is still not secure in my mind. I don't think Maitland wants it to be. Is the villain a symbol for death, for the destructiveness of lies, or of holy judgment? All are perfectly possible.

Company of Liars (Audio Download): Karen Maitland, David Company of Liars (Audio Download): Karen Maitland, David

That gives Ellis a chance to show off some humor. Allison wonders what reporters would say if they followed her into the grocery store: “Yes, Bob, we can now confirm that Allison Pagone has decided to go with the sugarless gum Trident as her breath freshener, baffling experts who had predicted cinnamon Altoids.” And the newspaper headline, “Murder suspect: ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!’ ” I almost subtracted another star for the ideology that Maitland sneaks within some of her chapter headings and paragraph length quotes. Oh, they are definitely quotable. But I will put none of them here. Because some of them are more than incorrect to my life's opinion, and they simply don't come from that plague century either. This tale is set in the year AD 1348, and the Great Plague is ravaging throughout the land, and making people flee towards hopefully healthier and safer places to live. Secrets are a part and parcel of our lives and to hide them we often take the help of lies to ensure that these secrets stay hidden and protected. This is almost everyone’s story and I honestly feel that each person is entitled to their secrets and lies. What man does not lie? It could be those small white lies said to make others happy or even the big ones, told majorly to ensure some secrets are kept safe and no damage occurs to their lives and the lives of their loved ones? Can these people honestly be blamed for those lies that are often disguised, maybe badly, as ways to help keep their loved ones safe? Can people be blamed for keeping secrets that when revealed would lead to their persecution? Human nature is tuned in such a way that it will do anything, absolutely anything, to escape their own persecution or the persecution of those they love and therefore lying in such a context doesn’t seem like a major sin to them. Or maybe they feel that they are justified in telling such lies and don’t fear the consequences that they will face because of it. As in the quote above ‘a secret stays a secret until it finds an understanding ear’. The narrator of this text (Camelot) is a wonderful voice to carry us through the proceedings and creates a sympathetic prism from which to view the other characters, all of whom have unlikable traits, but most of whom I was able to feel some empathy with.

How Company of Liars came to be written

Karen Maitland, who also writes as KJ Maitland, lives in the beautiful county of Devon and has a doctorate in psycholinguists. I'm not saying all Medieval people should be depicted as absolute brutes, but in this book there is one particular character (out of 9) who is openly sexist, homophobic and antisemitic, and he is the one depicted as a terribly bad person in general, while most of the others seem pretty open-minded even by today's standards. Sure, we can imagine that there's a very specific set of characters, not representative of the whole population, but then, I don't know, maybe they could meet some of the population? I mean, the majority of my parents' generation are (sadly) pretty sexist and homophobic, but they're not all mustache-twirling, throat-slashing movie villains! For God's sake, my own grandmother thinks that red-haired children are born evil and she is literate and watches TV! Allison Pagone is lying dead in her bathtub presumably by her own hand. She was about to be convicted of the murder of her boyfriend Sam Dillon, bludgeoned to death with a marble-based statuette that, although it had been missing since the murder several months prior, is now prominently displayed in Allison's home. It all looks very cut and dried and possibly very convenient. An FBI special operations division knew exactly what was going to happen.

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Writing as KJ Maitland, her new historical thriller 'Rivers of Treason', the 3rd in her Jacobean quartet, is set in 1607. Daniel Pursglove finds himself again embroiled in murder in the aftermath of the infamous Gunpowder Plot. The 1st book in the series is 'The Drowned City', and 2nd 'Traitor in the Ice' are also published by Headline. Suffice to say that the plague sets the tone. The villages and the English countryside are stench real. And the outcomes, despite the level of the tales told by the company, never seemed to be one of any hope or optimism. Not by this reader. The preceding paragraph makes much more sense once you have read the book. I don't want to spoil anything!) I would end by saying that this book had a lot going for it but it was not followed upon. Most of the twists were something that I had already figured out, so it held no mystery for me. Neither was the writing so great that I could write reams on it. All in all, a disappointment for me. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone but if you feel like taking a dip into these waters, please do so. Who knows, you might end up liking it, as tastes always differ. There are clues throughout as to what is going to happen, not just what will happen next, but what will unfold throughout the rest of the story. Some of the hints are fairly large; most readers will probably guess ahead of the plot, but it was the pleasure of fitting everything together that kept my interest -- this and that I already knew, but what significance it could have...Because it’s very hard to write, probably. But in the end, the principles are the same. You are processing facts and trying to guess the outcome—only this time, the outcome is how the story began, and how each new fact will change what you thought you already knew. I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to challenge the reader. I wanted to challenge convention. I wanted to give readers something that they have never seen before. How many mystery writers, these days, can say that? You’ve heard tales of beauty and the beast. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you’ve never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn’t happen, not even in a story-teller’s tale. My other quibble with Company of Liars is the amount of hype around the characters' so-called secrets. Most of these secrets are far too obvious. I'm particularly disappointed with the final secret, the twist involving Camelot and his past--it's just so unoriginal and predictable that it's disappointing. Now, the twist itself makes sense within the context of the plot ... it's just a bit of a let down after such an enjoyable story otherwise.