A Tricky Lie

Sutherland Mystery #1

by Ella J. Fraser

In this cosy mystery, Scottish distillery heiress Fiona Sutherland has a plan. After two years in London reporting on business for The Times, she feels she’s ready to assume her role at Sutherland Distillery in the bucolic village that served as a sanctuary in her childhood. But when her grandmother’s friend falsely confesses to the murder of the local greenkeeper two days before the start of the British Open, Fiona’s real expertise proves to be jousting with enigmatic Detective Chief Inspector Nick Dawson and stirring up secrets buried within a tricky lie.

Genres: Mystery

168 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 24, 2011

About the author

While her day job had been in corporate marketing and communications, making the most of an MBA she'd earned years earlier, it often required a knack for creativity and the sort of willing suspension of disbelief worthy of an MFA. Nevertheless, it failed to provide the level of satisfaction accrued from more legitimate pursuits like painting and writing.

After receiving New York photographer Christopher Beane's book Flower as a gift, she was so moved she sat down to write him an email complimenting him on his talent. What she ended up writing was the manuscript for Waking Up In London, her first novel.

Reviews

[colourist]

Clever plot. A feel-good mystery series.

[Ella Fraser]

When the idea for A Tricky Lie came to me, I vividly remember thinking 'That would make a great mystery.' Within minutes I was giddily scratching bits of the story onto whatever piece of paper was handy. The idea germinated from something that happened in my life, and from that point forward it was a constant balancing act of weaving fact with fiction.

The plot unfolded over time, which in itself was like reading a mystery, and as the story revealed itself to me, I transformed it into a book. Placing clues here and there, as well as a few red herrings, was devilishly fun. Essentially, it was like putting together a puzzle, or, more accurately, taking one apart since I already knew how it was going to end.

[Rebecca]

Overall, interesting characters and plot. I did not immediately guess the identity of the killer, and I like that in a mystery! Also liked the fact that the victim was very worthy of respect and a sympathetic character, but still human and flawed. So many times in murder mysteries, you don't really get a feel for the victim at all, but here I feel like I did. However, I did feel like the author fell into the cliche of having the murderer "confess all" in great detail to the investigator before trying to kill them. The only other complaint about this book that I had was that there were lots of sentence fragments which were distracting for me.

[International Cat Lady]

A nice, solid, British mystery. Not the most exciting, but well written and engaging... although the author was at times too heavy on the details. Details are great - I want a good sense of the environment and the characters, but there were some places where she definitely went a tad overboard.

[Margaret]

dull and uninvolving.