Little Town Lies

by Anne Strieber

Sally Hopkins was a social worker for the State of Texas. Worn out, burned out, she calls up her uncle Ed, sheriff of the small East Texas town of Maryvale, to find out if she can come and stay with him for a while. Much to her surprise, Ed not only wants her to visit, he has work for her. The town has been plagued over the summer by a series of arsons and animal mutilations. Chilled, Sally agrees to take the job. These are two of the signs of a budding serial killer, and it's crucial that the perpetrator be identified and stopped before he moves on to even more serious crimes.

But within a week of Sally's arrival in town, a woman is killed, the town's first murder in decades. The investigation turns from looking for a troubled boy who likes to torture cats into a desperate search for a killer who is sure to strike again.

Strieber takes us below the surface of small town life, to the dark undercurrents of suffering and depravity. With an appealing and engaging heroine, she builds the suspense page by page, creating a novel that is at times warmly funny, and utterly terrifying. Little Town Lies is a classic psychological mystery from a bright new talent.

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 20, 2005

About the author

Before becoming a writer she was a schoolteacher. She married fellow novelist, Whitley Strieber; they have one son, Andrew.

She was the managing editor of her husband's Web site, unknowncountry.com, and was also a host of the Dreamland radio show podcast hosted there.

She was portrayed by Lindsay Crouse in the film adaptation of her husband's nonfiction work Communion.

She wrote one other book under the pseudonym Anne McLean Matthews.

Anne Strieber died on August 11, 2015.

Reviews

[Peggy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is very disappointing. It starts out promising, but simply cannot deliver. Sally is a burned out social worker living in Houston. She had a very unhappy childhood and decides to escape Houston and go to the tiny town of Maryvale where she spent several happy summers with her Uncle Ed, who is the long time local sheriff. Ed hires Sally to investigate some small animal mutilations. Her experience as a social worker helps her, but then a brutal murder happens, and another, and another. Suddenly she is acting one moment out of her depth, the next moment like an FBI profiler. I found her to be an inconsistent character. Crazed animal torturer, stranger serial killer. Are they the same person? Then inexplicably Sally becomes sheriff herself (seems ill conceived to me). The crimes are designed to shock. The whole town seems to filled with people with secrets and lies. Sally begins to have recollections of her own sexual abuse. The whole thing seemed to just get creepier with some of it transparent and too easy to figure out. I knew who Sally’s abuser was from her first memory. As she investigates she jumps to conclusions. Eventually it leads to the surprise killer, but by then I was weary of the tedious story.

[Kara Bewley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hot mess.

[Haley Ramirez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mean, I honestly didn’t hate the book. The issue was that the author made sally into a total hot mess. The end seemed very last min. It was also pretty predictable.

[SingingSparrow · Rating 1 out of 5]

Little Town Lies, more terrifying than warmly funny, follows Sally back to her hometown of Maryvale. As a social worker, working in Houston, you would think that she has seen her fair share of shock but it is not until she returns home to help her uncle Ed, where she is confronted by some of the worst crimes of her career. Following the investigation of the serial killer, Sally must also integrate herself within this little town, and ultimately uncover some of those secrets that she left behind long ago.

This was one of those books that I had started a couple times but ultimately left it sitting on my shelf in exchange for a better read. Finally I read the novel in its entirety but now I see why it has been sitting for so long. Uncovering the secrets hidden away in Maryvale was a bit more frightening than compelling. I don't really think a lot of what occured was very realistic or exciting as a plot. If you can borrow this book from someone then you should read it for yourself to see it from a different view but if you ever thought to buy this book then I would pass on it (regardless of the price).

[Estelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book that tries too hard. To me it seems amateur. The timing and elaboration of the details in this book are inefficiently paced and plotted.

Sally Hopkins is written as a woman who escape from the small town to the big city for a better opportunity, then when things doesnt work out for her,she decides to go back to her small town, where she still felt stronger as a safe haven. This character doesnt strike very stronger as a detective/police officer. Her job as a social worker works well with her character, until abruptly she became the sheriff, then abruptly have flashbacks about the summers she was in Uncle Ed's, where she got sexually abused. The story had a very nice twist but the timing for building the suspense and tension, seems too sudden, insufficent. Like a blink of the eye, it there and gone, the next thing/problem comes in line.

The ending was better, when they found out the killer, child-psycho. By the time, i read to this part, i lost most of my interest. But got to give Strieber credit, to have a story ending like this.

[Magda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unexpected turned in the book, difficult to read emotionally at times. It was heavy but good.

[Carl Hanger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dark view of small town life in East Texas. Also makes the FBI appear to be idiots, which they are certainly not. Gives on the feeling that everyone is a victim of something.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this book, it was an interesting set up with a social worker returning to her adopted hometown, where she gets tangled up with a local murder mystery.