All the Best Lies (Ellery Hathaway #3) by Joanna Schaffhausen #bookreview #Mystery #THRILLER #crime #romance

Title: All the Best Lies

Author: Ellery Hathaway

Publisher:  Minotaur Books

Publication Date: February 11, 2020

Page Count:  336

My rating: 5 stars

About the book:

The highly anticipated third novel in the award-winning Ellery Hathaway mystery series.

FBI agent Reed Markham is haunted by one painful unsolved mystery: who murdered his mother? Camilla was brutally stabbed to death more than forty years ago while baby Reed lay in his crib mere steps away. The trail went so cold that the Las Vegas Police Department has given up hope of solving the case. But then a shattering family secret changes everything Reed knows about his origins, his murdered mother, and his powerful adoptive father, state senator Angus Markham. Now Reed has to wonder if his mother’s killer is uncomfortably close to home.

Unable to trust his family with the details of his personal investigation, Reed enlists his friend, suspended cop Ellery Hathaway, to join his quest in Vegas. Ellery has experience with both troubled families and diabolical murderers, having narrowly escaped from each of them. She’s eager to skip town, too, because her own father, who abandoned her years ago, is suddenly desperate to get back in contact. He also has a secret that could change her life forever, if Ellery will let him close enough to hear it.

Far from home and relying only on each other, Reed and Ellery discover young Camilla had snared the attention of dangerous men, any of whom might have wanted to shut her up for good. They start tracing his twisted family history, knowing the path leads back to a vicious killer―one who has been hiding in plain sight for forty years and isn’t about to give up now.

All the Best Lies by Joanna Schaffhausen is the third book of the thrilling Ellery Hathaway series. This series follows Ellery Hathaway who is now a police officer but Ellery wasn’t her original name, she changed her name and became the person she is today thanks to once being the victim herself.

Years ago Ellery Hathaway became victim number seventeen of serial killer Francis Michael Coben when she was abducted and held captive. Ellery was lucky enough that FBI Agent Reed Markham saw something other investigators hadn’t and followed clues to Coben’s home where he managed to rescue Ellery and put Coben behind bars making Ellery the one that survived.

When people began disappearing from Woodbury, MA where Ellery is an officer on a date significant to her she ended up working with Reed Markham to solve the case. Now Ellery and Reed have established a relationship together working on a crimes so Reed enlists Ellery’s help in the one case that has always plagued him, the murder of his own mother.

I have followed the Ellery Hathaway series from the beginning and have liked each book just a bit more as I’ve read them. Really with all the character building in these the books are best read in order and get more exciting as they go along. What I’ve found in these is a small town vibe with a flawed main character that has taken her tortured past and turned into one heck of a strong female lead. Then there is a bit of romance with bringing in her rescuer and now working with him as her still wants to protect her. This has been my favorite thrilling ride of the series and I’ll continue to follow this series to see what comes next.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online: 

Goodreads  /   Amazon **

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