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DECEIT
by James Siegel
Warner Books, August 2006
384 pages
$24.99
ISBN: 0446531863


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

When we are small one of the first things that we are taught is not to believe everything you read. Tom Valle would be the last person to disagree with that statement. Several years ago he worked for a prestigious and distinguished New York newspaper, receiving great acclaim for getting the stories other reporters were unable to do. And there was a reason for that. He made them all up.

After his lies became public he was disgraced and sent away from the Fourth Estate with his tail between his legs. He moved as far away from the mess as possible until he got to Littleton, California.

Tom is now serving his own penance working for a weekly small-town newspaper covering grand openings, senior citizens' birthdays, and other low-key events. Then he is called to investigate a fatal traffic accident that doesn't seem to be quite right. There is something else going on and he plans to investigate.

He learns a horrifying secret that affects the town that he's living in and he uncovers an ugly conspiracy. Tom manages to track a lot of information due to his self-proclaimed ingenuity. But who can he tell? No one is going to believe him -- after all he is known to be a liar. What is he supposed to do? The answer may surprise you.

Tom Valle is the first-person narrator for DECEIT and he lets you know straight off the bat not to trust him. He's a well-known liar and for all we know the story that he is about to tell might be a big lie, but he is willing to take that chance. He has a story to tell and he will tell it at his own pace.

His story is a bit over the top and we only get his point of view, no one else's. Now the question is whether you want to trust him or not because regardless of the answer something is going to happen. Whether you want to believe it or not, that's up to you.

Siegel is very personable inside the novel, introducing a self-deprecating reporter who knows that he's messed up and knows that he is never going to be back to who he was. There are moments of humor and several moments of cleverness interspersed with the story. There are also some whopping coincidences that make one wonder if there is something more to his tale that we aren't hearing yet.

Valle takes matters into his own hands and does what he can with the information that he knows. The thing readers will wonder is whether Tom will wind up being a hero or a goat within this situation. Only one way to find out -- but at least with this book you know what you might be getting.

Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, June 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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