Liz Nugent - Lying in Wait

Lying in Wait is a dark and gripping psychological thriller by Liz Nugent, centered on a family with a sinister secret. The novel begins with an attention-grabbing first line: "My husband did not mean to kill Annie Doyle, but the lying tramp deserved it". This reveals the immediate aftermath of a murder committed by the Fitzsimons family, who appear respectable on the surface. The story unfolds through multiple perspectives over decades, focusing on the highly manipulative matriarch Lydia, her subservient husband Andrew, and their bullied son Laurence. As they attempt to bury their crime, their actions trigger a long and devastating fallout. The plot intensifies when Laurence grows up and becomes obsessed with the dead girl's sister, Karen, threatening to unravel his mother's carefully constructed web of lies. The book is a tense character study of how a single act of violence can corrupt an entire family.