Ring of Truth

Marie Lightfoot #2

by Nancy Pickard

Bestselling author Nancy Pickard 'continues along with Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton - to deliver the best' (Houston Chronicle) with a chilling new mystery featuring the intrepid Marie Lightfoot.

Genres: Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Novels, Detective

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2001

About the author

Nancy Pickard is an American crime novelist. She received a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri and began writing at age 35.

She has won five Macavity Awards, four Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, and a Shamus Award. She is the only author to win all four awards. Her novel The Virgin of Small Plains, published in 2007, won an Agatha Award. She also served on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America.

Reviews

[Elif]

Kitap yorumuna başlarken yazarın ilk okuduğum kitabına da çok bayılmadığımı söylemeliyim. Bu kitap için de büyük umutlarım yoktu. Nedense Marie Lightfoot karakteri beni pek sarmadı.
Marie cinayet romanları yazıyor. Kitapta hem Marie’yi hem de yazdığı cinayeti okuyorsunuz. Bir bölüm o bir bölüm bu. Bu biraz kafa karıştırıcı.
Papaz Wing’in karısı öldürülmüş, papazın metresi olduğu iddia edilmiş ve papaz idama mahkum edilmiştir. Marie’nin kitabını bitirdikten sonra ulaştığı deliller konunun peşini bırakmamasına sebep olmuştur. Belki de en bariz olan doğru değildir. Belki de her zaman eşelemek gerekir.
Kitabın ortalama üstü bir polisiye olduğunu söyleyebilirim. Merak ettiriyor. Sürüklüyor. Benim gibi sonun bir kısmını tahmin edebilirsiniz. Hepsini değil. Çünkü tüm son bayağı şaşırtıcı. Ben diğer kitaba göre daha çok beğendim. Ama favorilerimden olmadı.

[Nur]

Kötü değil ama eksik hissettiren bir şeyler var. Yazarın geçişlerine alışamadım. Yine de sıkılmadan okudum.

[Tûba]

Ne bicim son bu boyle? 400 sayfa olay uzerine olay ve son 20 sayfada hop katiller bulundu, bitis!

[Rachel N.]

Marie Lightfoot is a true crime writer. Her latest book is about a minister who is convicted of murdering his wife to be with his lover. Marie isn't convinced she has the whole story and still digs into the case after the first draft of her book is finished. She also ends up looking into the case of a man on death row who the minister was trying to free. The book at first alternates between Marie's book and events in "real life". Then it switches entirely to Marie's investigation. I enjoyed the mystery and the twists and turns. According to goodreads I read the first book in this trilogy back in 2008 but I don't remember it so I might reread it soon.

[Ceren Ünlü]

Of; serinin ikinci kitabından okumaya başlamışım.
3,5'tan 4 puan
Favorim yazarın Bakire kitabı ;)

[Zeynep Dilara]

😍

[Sevide]

Başlarda biraz sıkıcı gibi dursa da sonları güzel bağlanmış her ne kadar tahmin ettiklerim çıksa da sevsim güzeldi yine yine

[E]

This Marie Lightfoot series doesn't seem as good as the Jenny Cain series. Now, it's been awhile since I read Pickard's Jenny Cain series, so I'm not sure if it is really better (this was, after all, the series that won Pickard so many awards), or if I've just gotten more sophisticated over the years in what I want from detective fiction. But this is the second Marie Lightfoot I've read and, while pleasant enough, there doesn't seem to be a complexity of character or a depth of plot. When I think about the mystery writers I like best - like Rankin, Burke, Stabenow, or even Muller after all these years - this newer Pickard series doesn't even seem like the same genre.

[Avid Series Reader]

Ring of Truth by Nancy Pickard is the second book of the Marie Lightfoot mystery series set in contemporary Florida. Marie Lightfoot is a true crime writer. She loves living in South Florida. Chapters alternate between action scenes in Marie's life vs. excerpts from Marie's latest book. Her latest true-crime story is about a minister and his lover who were pure evil. They killed his wife and left her to rot in semi-tropical Florida. Ten-year-old girls, exploring in forbidden territory, discover the body.

But even as Marie sends off her manuscript to the publisher, she feels something is missing. It's not until page 200 that she does in-depth research on the main players in the case...gee, I thought writers did the research first. Surprise plot twists keep on coming from that point, reversing the good guy / bad guy characterizations from the first 200 pages. Needless to say, Marie has to revise her manuscript once she learns what really happened (and confronts the killer).

[Can Demir]

Maalesef bu kitabında beni hayal kırıklığına uğrattı. Çevrilen diğer iki romanı beş üstünden beşken, bu kitaba maalesef en fazla iki puan verebilirim. Normalde bir verecektim de yazarın diğer kitaplarının hatırına puanı arttırdım. Ne karakterler, ne hikaye bana hiç inandırıcı gelmedi. Zaten bir cinayetin, bir roman yazarı tarafından çözülmeye çalışılması bana oldum olası çocukça gelir. Zorlamadır. Kurguyu basitleştirir ve benim gibi gerçek suç belgesellerinden tut, kriminal, hukuksal olaylara kadar her şeyi okuyan bir insana inandırıcı gelmez.

[Aurora]

Kötü yorumları görünce biraz tüh istediğim heyecanı vermeyecek mi diyerek başladım. Sanırım beklentiyi çok azaltmışım çünkü baya beğendim kitabın çoğu kısmında hiçbir fikrim yoktu açıkçası. Merak ederek okudum polisiye okumayı özlemişim. Söylenenlerin aksine yazım tarzı da hiç kafa karıştırıcı değildi ben beğendim.

[Donna Wolff]

Interesting premise of a story within a story. True crime writer tells the story of the book she has written about a horrific murder and then there is first person narrative of the writer's personal life. Makes for a great read and a very quick read.

[Terri]

Believe I enjoy this series even more than the Jenny Cain series by this same author. This series is told by a 'true-life' crime writer who goes back and looks into the crime she wrote about. The 2 I've read so far really have a good twist in them.

[Maryann]

Good twists in this series. Such fun.

[Donna]

enjoyed it. Great story

[Cindy]

Likeable detective and plot twists make this a very enjoyable read. Add this author to your list of "to read".

[Kathy Spann]

This was a big surprise ending. Short read.

[Kristin]

3.5 stars

[Şeyda]

Yazarın kalemi sıkıcı değil fakat bazı yerler fazla durağandı. Bir de kitabın başları çok kafa karıştırıcıydı. Kurguyu sevdim ama eksikleri vardı.

[Lisa]

I really liked this book. Nice concise plot line with WOW surprises at the end.

[Laura]

entertaining, cool twist

[Cheryl]

This is the second book in the series. Like the first one, it was quite difficult to put it down. Finished this one at 2:30 am, and the twists kept me guessing until the very end!

[Sarah]

Another good book in the series. A few editing issues that were annoying though.

[Ayşenur Nazlı]

Bir ara beynim yandı ama değdi kesinlikle. Bakire'den beri bayılıyorum bu kadına, daha çok ilgiyi hak ediyor.

[Dale]

This Edgar Award nominee does it again!

I've regularly read Nancy Pickard's 'Jenny Cain' series and have been heartened by the growth I've seen in her work. Pickard's detective stories have slowly been growing in power and complexity. This novel, however, may very well mark Pickard's arrival as a true master of the detective story.

I admit that I have not read another of this series, but I was struck by its simple cleverness. The writer of a 'true crime' novel becomes unnerved by doubts concerning the outcome of the trials and criminals that she has recently written about. Her own private investigation, interspersed with chapters from her recently completed 'true crime' book that fill the reader in on the back story, causes a great deal of distress and irritation among both the police and the real criminals.

Very well done. Very clever. I'll be looking for more in the series.

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[Amanda Coudriet]

The Ring of Truth is written a little differently. A crime novel told from the author who is writing a true crime novel. The book shows so many perspectives in such a compelling way that you are drawn into the story and just can not put it down. Nancy did such an amazing job of pulling you into the story in the being with the completion of her book. But you quickly learn that this is not the end. There are so many lose ends. New evidence that was hidden by the little girls who found her body and much more. With each chapter you are wanting more. I did not see the ending coming. I just love books like that. Perfect summer Beach read!

[Lisa Rathbun]

Like the first book in the series, this book intersperses chapters told from the point of view of an author with chapters from her true-crime books. This sort of format means that the stories tend to be VERY slow, with lots of description of the background and the aftermath of the crime but with action being downplayed. Some horrific things happen, but very little time is spent on the crimes themselves, which always seems a bit anticlimactic. The solutions to the crimes are unique and unexpected. I didn't like the main character as much in this book with her demands on her lover and her callousness toward his kids. (Objectionable elements)

[Scilla]

This is written from the point of view of an author (Marie Lightfoot) of true crime novels. It goes back and forth between the story and the life of the author, who gets into danger as she tries to discover the truth. The accused is a minister Reverend Wing who has allegedly killed his wife with the help of his lover, Artemis. He has been fighting capital punishment and ends up in the cell on death row next to the accused man who he is trying to save. The story of the previous murder is an integral part of the story. There are some very interesting twists to the plot.

[Cara]

Ring of Truth is a crime/thriller whose "amateur detective" is a true crime writer. While putting the finishing touches on her latest book, Marie Lightfoot uncovers additional information that may mean that justice has not been served.

This book was a good entertaining read, about what you would expect from a supermarket crime/thriller novel. I was expecting more, having loved Nancy Pickard's The Scent of Rain and Lightning and The Virgin of Small Plains, which both seemed more "literary" than Ring of Truth.

[Rachel]

3.5 stars

I had a bit of a hard time rating this one-I've read 3 other books from this author and think she writes a great mystery.

This book drew me in immediately and I had a hard time putting it down. The story was both interesting and incredibly fast paced. However, while I enjoyed this book overall, it does fall apart at the end. I just didn't buy how things came together and much of what was revealed wasn't very believable. I'm still looking forward to reading the next book in the series but hoping for a stronger ending.