Book review - I'll Tell You No Lies

 

Title: I'll Tell You No Lies

Author: Amanda McCrina

Genre: historical fiction

Similar books: The Killing Code by Ellie Marney

                      Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse

Rating:

 

too scattered

Summary (provided by publisher): New York, 1955. Eighteen-year-old Shelby Blaine and her father, an Air Force intelligence officer, have just been wrenched away from their old life in West Germany to New York’s Griffiss Air Force Base, where he has been summoned to lead the interrogation of an escaped Soviet pilot. Still in shock from the car accident that killed her mother barely a month earlier, Shelby struggles with her grief, an emotionally distant father, and having to start over in a new home.
Then a chance meeting with Maksym, the would-be defector, spirals into a deadly entanglement, as the pilot’s cover story is picked apart and he attempts to escape his military and intelligence handlers—with Shelby caught in the middle. The more she learns of Maksym’s secrets, including his detention at Auschwitz during the war, the more she becomes willing to help him. But as the stakes become more dangerous, Shelby begins to question everything she has been told, even by her fugitive friend. Allies turn into enemies, and the truth is muddled by lies. Can she trust a traitor with her life, or will it be the last mistake she ever makes?

My opinion: This book starts with a solid premise - a girl already on the outside crossing paths with a defector and potential spy trying to find out the truth. It asks solid questions about where our loyalties lie and what things influence us. Not to mention shedding light on life inside of the USSR during the Cold War era. These were the elements that drew me in. The reality was far less compelling, mostly because it was too hard to follow. I can certainly understand how the lies inherent in the world of military intelligence would complicate every interaction. But a single conversation in this book asserts wildly different "truths". We have no time to rest in a story, to accept it and start believing it, before a character tells us that it is all lies. Nothing can be trusted and it changes so quickly that we don't form attachments to anyone or any thing. Without any consistency it's too hard to engage with the plot and characters.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley