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Hurting Distance by Sophie Hannah EPUB

"How will I begin? Once upon a time… but  I am not confessing or revealing. I am lying through my teeth -- that‹s  the way to look at it. The truth will only be there to serve the lie,  which means I don’t have to feel the feelings" (p. 75).

Naomi Jenkins is in love. Three years ago, she never would have  thought it was possible. Kidnapped and brutally raped -- but unwilling to  report it to the police, or even to share her anguish outside of an  anonymous survivors' Web site -- Naomi effectively shut off her emotions.  Then, she met the unhappily married Robert Haworth, and the two shared a  blissful year of clandestine meetings. So when Robert misses their  usual rendezvous, Naomi is convinced he has come to harm and will stop  at nothing to find him.

Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse and Detective Sergeant Charlotte  "Charlie" Zailer aren't sure what to make of the expensively dressed  and crisply professional sundial maker who arrives in their offices to  report a missing person. "Plenty of married men left their lovers  without adequate explanation" (p. 20), but experience tells them to give  her the benefit of the doubt.

Before coming to the police, Naomi asks her best friend, Yvon  Cotchin, to call Robert's home. His wife, Juliet, tells Yvon that he is  visiting out-of-town friends. Undeterred, Naomi goes to their house in  person only to discover that Robert -- a lorry driver -- has left his vehicle  parked outside. When Juliet finds her peering into the house, she calls  to Naomi by name and taunts her by saying, " ‘You're better off without  him. I've done you a favour' " (p. 27).

Although Simon and Charlie promise Naomi that they'll pay Juliet a  visit, Naomi seethes with anger; she wants "to smash… their unresponsive  heads together. They as good as admitted that they planned to do  nothing" (pp. 36 – 37), and she is not a woman to sit idle when she  feels slighted.

Naomi decides to change tactics -- even if it means she must tell a  horrific lie. She returns to the station and tells Simon that her  previous story was pure fiction. Now, she'd like to report a rape. The  circumstances of the attack she describes mirror those that she endured  years before, but now she claims that Robert is not her lover -- he is her  assailant.

Naomi's wildly contradictory allegations put the crime unit in a  tricky position. Their boss, Detective Inspector Giles Proust, thinks  that Naomi is playing games, and things have been rocky enough around  the station without Proust -- aka The Snowman -- breathing down everyone's  necks for answers.



Charlie had been doing her best to hide the romantic feelings she  still harbors for Simon -- until he mentions that he's planning to look up a  woman involved in one of their earlier cases. Meanwhile, the two other  members of their team, DC Christopher Gibbs and DC Colin Sellers, are  respectively preoccupied with the former's upcoming nuptials and the  latter's romantic getaway with his mistress. However, when it appears  that Naomi's actual rapist is still at large, the unit is galvanized  into action.

Strangely enough, as the police begin to search for Robert Haworth,  they find a lot of unexpected evidence that corroborates Naomi's false  claim. But how can this be happening? Naomi knows she was lying -- she  knows Robert wasn't the man who raped her, that he isn't the psychopath  she claimed he was, so how can the police be finding evidence to suggest  that's exactly what he is?

Sophie Hannah is a master of psychological suspense whose star continues to rise. In The Truth-Teller's Lie,  she brings back Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer for another superb  thriller that plumbs the murkiest regions of the human psyche. But will  they be able to act swiftly enough to prevent an even more sinister  crime?

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