No Lie Lasts Forever is a foray into thriller writing for Colorado-based author Mark Stevens, who has previously written the sleuth series featuring Allison Coil and The Fireballer, a baseball novel. The idea behind this novel is unique: a murder hits the Denver news, setting off fears that the notorious PDQ serial killer is back more than a decade after his killings abruptly and mysteriously stopped. Most shocked by this news, however, is the real PDQ killer, Harry Kugel.

Mark Stevens

Kugel’s indignant that someone is trying to pin their crimes on him; he’s stopped himself from murdering more victims and wants credit for going straight. So he decides there’s only one thing left to do: figure out who the real killer is and clear his own name. Aware that he can’t go to the police or the news and tell them he’s not the killer, Kugel has to find an alternative method. He lands on seeking out a television journalist, recently publicly disgraced. He contacts her discreetly and insists she help him track down a killer, possibly redeeming herself in doing so. The problem is that Flynn Martin, the journalist, has a stark sense of right and wrong and is terrible at following orders. Kugel’s a little too confident that she’ll blindly follow his orders, and he’s got quite an ego to work around, setting up a nice conflict.

This is not one of those thrillers with a high body count. Instead, it’s a great book for those who seek out the psychological suspense of a thriller without the gore and typical level of violence found in the harder ones. The reader is less of a voyeur in this case and more a hunter.

The story is multi-faceted and complicated, fleshed out nicely by the author’s past as a reporter and producer. Stevens has real history with the journalistic experience and a keen knowledge of Denver, which frees him to put his characters through their paces. Here, we get a realistic snapshot of how a journalist hunts down a lead. Each little bread crumb may lead somewhere vital, to nothing at all, or end up being misleading. But this is no how-to, and there’s much more to the story. Flynn is hit from all sides, starting with her devastating and public mistake that opens the book. Ultimately, she’s in a race to unmask two killers and rebuild the trust of her audience.  This means pushing her boundaries and defying the ones set by Harry, which puts her father, son and a friend at great risk.

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The characters in No Lie Lasts Forever are well developed and truly human. Flynn makes some decisions that bring increasingly more trouble down on her and those around her, and sometimes she’s a bit obtuse, but she’s also earnest, determined, intent on doing the right thing and an excellent journalist who cares about other people’s welfare. Harry’s a sociopath. He’ll do what it takes to show the most recent kill doesn’t belong to him, even if it means threats, stalking, sex and murder.

Cat and mouse games are often one-sided, but this story is made up of hunters, each doing it in their own way, some of them being hunted by multiple people. It’s a complicated web woven around multiple characters that holds the reader in thrall, despite a slow, purposeful pace. The better to draw out the hunt. An element I liked was the shortening of chapters as we neared the climax and final showdown, the pace picking up exponentially.

 The push and pull between Harry and Flynn is fun to watch, and it increases the tension and suspense in the book; both characters can be unpredictable. No Lie Lasts Forever is a recommended read for anyone looking for psychological suspense, and if you like this one, maybe check out Mark Stevens’ Allison Coil mysteries as well.