Believe Me: A Novel

For struggling actress Claire, a side job as a decoy for a divorce law firm is a way to use her acting skills while earning some rent money. So when duty calls, she gets dressed up, preys on cheating husbands at local bars, and exchanges her evidence of infidelity for income. But when, for the first time, Claire fails to procure evidence on one of her targets and his wife is murdered shortly after, she takes on the ultimate acting role: a double agent for the FBI in order to catch the killer. What starts as a risky operation soon escalates into a dangerous blurring of lines, leaving Claire with the question of whether she can grasp reality in time to save her own life.

JP Delaney’s Believe Me takes you through the psychological wringer, both through its content and through its physical writing style. But while the jolting structure plot is interesting, the lack of a single reliable (or likable) character – including the narrator herself – leaves a feeling of ungroundedness. There are too many questions, too many uncertainties, too many absurd plot twists for this to feel compelling. Believe Me does stand out from other thrillers on the market, but readers should be prepared for the psychological whiplash that will inevitably ensue.