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In the Company of Liars

A Thriller

Mass Market Paperback
$8.99 US
4.22"W x 6.74"H x 1.07"D   | 8 oz | 24 per carton
On sale Mar 07, 2006 | 400 Pages | 9780425204290
From bestselling and award-winning author David Ellis

Told in chronological reverse, from its enigmatic end to its brilliant beginning, the novel is centered on a woman who is on trial for murder—Allison Pagone, a mother caught between competing forces, each represented by someone who may not care if the pressure kills her in the end.


A prosecutor wants Allison convicted and put on death row. An FBI agent believes she can squeeze her into ratting on her family. A daughter and an ex-husband need to save their own skins. And circling them all: a group who would prefer to eliminate her quietly and anonymously, but who also are not what they seem.

Our first picture of Allison is in the moments following her death. The story then moves backward in time like the cult film Memento: an hour earlier, then the day before, back and back to the beginning, until we can see what’s really happened—and, most shocking, what hasn’t. At every turn, Allison Pagone knows that what she sees may not be what’s real. The only sure thing is her place in a vortex of half-truths, threats, and suspicion. When her nightmare is over, will she awake in the company of friends—or in the company of liars?

In the Company of Liars is a tantalizing tour de force—a “compelling new novel of intrigue, murder, and terrorism” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
“Edgar-winner Ellis takes some big chances in his fourth book, and he pulls them off in grand style. The Chicago trial lawyer branches out from his previous legal thrillers into a minefield of world terrorism and misplaced family loyalties, writing not only in the present tense but working backward from the death of his lead character, author Allison Pagone, who ostensibly kills herself after getting tangled up in a terrorist plot through her lover, a lawyer whom she’s suspected of murdering…This is another impressive performance from a writer who expands his ambition and artistry from book to book.” —Publishers Weekly

“Just when you thought there was nothing new a writer could do with the mystery genre, David Ellis decided to turn the formula upside-down and, yes, backward.” —Boston Herald

“A…complex, highly intelligent thriller that burrows backward through time like Houdini explaining a trick.” —New York Times bestselling author Lee Child
© Kevin Kuster
David Ellis is a judge and a #1 New York Times-bestselling, Edgar Award-winning author of eleven novels of crime fiction, as well as nine books co-authored with James Patterson. In December, 2014, Dave was sworn in as the youngest-serving Justice of the Illinois Appellate Court for the First District. Ellis lives outside Chicago with his wife and three children. View titles by David Ellis

About

From bestselling and award-winning author David Ellis

Told in chronological reverse, from its enigmatic end to its brilliant beginning, the novel is centered on a woman who is on trial for murder—Allison Pagone, a mother caught between competing forces, each represented by someone who may not care if the pressure kills her in the end.


A prosecutor wants Allison convicted and put on death row. An FBI agent believes she can squeeze her into ratting on her family. A daughter and an ex-husband need to save their own skins. And circling them all: a group who would prefer to eliminate her quietly and anonymously, but who also are not what they seem.

Our first picture of Allison is in the moments following her death. The story then moves backward in time like the cult film Memento: an hour earlier, then the day before, back and back to the beginning, until we can see what’s really happened—and, most shocking, what hasn’t. At every turn, Allison Pagone knows that what she sees may not be what’s real. The only sure thing is her place in a vortex of half-truths, threats, and suspicion. When her nightmare is over, will she awake in the company of friends—or in the company of liars?

In the Company of Liars is a tantalizing tour de force—a “compelling new novel of intrigue, murder, and terrorism” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

Praise

“Edgar-winner Ellis takes some big chances in his fourth book, and he pulls them off in grand style. The Chicago trial lawyer branches out from his previous legal thrillers into a minefield of world terrorism and misplaced family loyalties, writing not only in the present tense but working backward from the death of his lead character, author Allison Pagone, who ostensibly kills herself after getting tangled up in a terrorist plot through her lover, a lawyer whom she’s suspected of murdering…This is another impressive performance from a writer who expands his ambition and artistry from book to book.” —Publishers Weekly

“Just when you thought there was nothing new a writer could do with the mystery genre, David Ellis decided to turn the formula upside-down and, yes, backward.” —Boston Herald

“A…complex, highly intelligent thriller that burrows backward through time like Houdini explaining a trick.” —New York Times bestselling author Lee Child

Author

© Kevin Kuster
David Ellis is a judge and a #1 New York Times-bestselling, Edgar Award-winning author of eleven novels of crime fiction, as well as nine books co-authored with James Patterson. In December, 2014, Dave was sworn in as the youngest-serving Justice of the Illinois Appellate Court for the First District. Ellis lives outside Chicago with his wife and three children. View titles by David Ellis