Deception

This book was originally entitled Sanctum and was changed to Deception for the American market. After having read it, this is one of the few times when I think the name change was warranted. Deception wound its way through the entire book from all sides. Nothing was as it seemed and the viewpoint of the reader changed almost page by page as new information was revealed.

Lachlan Harriott’s wife was convicted of the brutal murder of a serial killer and his wife. Lachlan, who loves his wife deeply, is shocked and devastated at the conviction and sets out to provide all of the information possible to sway the case in their favour at an appeal. He doesn’t seem to realize that the only person who believes an appeal will ever take place is he. However, the very act of trying to prove that his wife is completely innocent sends him on a roller coaster ride of emotions very nearly ending in his own destruction. From the beginning, the reader has the feeling that Lachlan is deluding himself, which the evidence he begins to find seems to support. It isn’t long before he begins to realize that there is more to the whole situation than his wife being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet, the story line isn’t a classic one. Mina creates unforeseeable twists and turns of a plot which has already happened as the story unfolds. Lachlan uncovers both intentional and unintentional deception on just about every level during his investigation and the resulting emotional turmoil very nearly destroys his own soul as he tries to untangle the strands of the story and make sense of them.

He eventually does untangle them, but the outcome is surprising and the results equally so. It’s a demonstration of how love can easily turn to hate and hate to love, how humans can deceive themselves as a form of self-protection and how well that protection works unless and until cracks appear in the shell. Once those cracks are there, breakdown isn’t far away and the resulting pain can be almost unbearable.

All in all a good read. It’s a good depiction of the realistic dark side of human nature.