Believe Me: A Novel

An Amazon Best Book of July 2018: There were times while reading JP Delaney’s Believe Me where I asked myself, what the hell is going on?! Not out of frustration, but rather out of admiration for Delaney’s ability to keep me guessing. The novel centers around a murder, a struggling actress, and the dark nature of Baudelaire’s poetry. And if you think you know unreliable narrators, just wait until you meet the actress Claire. The trope is familiar: a woman is brutally killed in a hotel room; is her husband the killer? Claire finds herself playing a part in this all-too-real drama in order to rid herself of suspicion and to help catch what now appears to be a serial killer. But is she really acting? Is she crazy? Is she the killer? The story winds this way and that, and my allegiance to Claire followed suit, until Delaney’s over-the-top ending arrived. For some, the final acts of Believe Me may push their limits for suspending disbelief. But for me, the events leading up to the final act were so dramatic that a flamboyant conclusion was the only way out. —Seira Wilson, Amazon Book Review