
The Good Liar
Denise Mina(Author)
Harvill Secker (Publisher)
Published on 31. July 2025
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-1-78730-428-4 (ISBN)
Description
The McIlvanney Prize Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2025 Finalist
If you were responsible for a miscarriage of justice would you admit it?
The truth can set you free. Or destroy your life.
'So sharp it'll cut your fingers' ERIN KELLY
'A writer of rare and remarkable talents' STEVE CAVANAGH
'Sublime' ABIR MUKHERJEE
'Mina at her blazing, blood-splattered best' LUCY WORSLEY
'A stand-out read' Guardian
'Tense, nuanced and moving' Crime Time
'Propulsive mystery' ALAFAIR BURKE
'Blisteringly good' SARAH HILARY
Blood spatter expert Doctor Claudia O'Sheil's evidence put a killer behind bars - or so everyone thinks. Since the trial, Claudia has learned a horrific truth: her evidence and her testimony were wrong.
Now as she takes the stage to give a speech before London's elite specialists, Claudia has to choose: keep lying and leave the wronged killer behind bars or stand up, tell the truth and rip her life apart.
What would you do?
More praise for Denise Mina
'Crime-writing royalty' IAN RANKIN
'A delight' ANN CLEEVES
'Highly original' The Times
'Darkly brilliant' Observer
'Denise Mina is a one-of-a-kind storyteller' JAMES PATTERSON
'Britain's best living crime writer' Sunday Express
'Forensic, beautiful and gripping' GRAHAM NORTON
'Crime fiction at its very best' JOSEPH KNOX
If you were responsible for a miscarriage of justice would you admit it?
The truth can set you free. Or destroy your life.
'So sharp it'll cut your fingers' ERIN KELLY
'A writer of rare and remarkable talents' STEVE CAVANAGH
'Sublime' ABIR MUKHERJEE
'Mina at her blazing, blood-splattered best' LUCY WORSLEY
'A stand-out read' Guardian
'Tense, nuanced and moving' Crime Time
'Propulsive mystery' ALAFAIR BURKE
'Blisteringly good' SARAH HILARY
Blood spatter expert Doctor Claudia O'Sheil's evidence put a killer behind bars - or so everyone thinks. Since the trial, Claudia has learned a horrific truth: her evidence and her testimony were wrong.
Now as she takes the stage to give a speech before London's elite specialists, Claudia has to choose: keep lying and leave the wronged killer behind bars or stand up, tell the truth and rip her life apart.
What would you do?
More praise for Denise Mina
'Crime-writing royalty' IAN RANKIN
'A delight' ANN CLEEVES
'Highly original' The Times
'Darkly brilliant' Observer
'Denise Mina is a one-of-a-kind storyteller' JAMES PATTERSON
'Britain's best living crime writer' Sunday Express
'Forensic, beautiful and gripping' GRAHAM NORTON
'Crime fiction at its very best' JOSEPH KNOX
Reviews / Votes
[A] compelling and suspenseful study of complicity... a stand-out read * Guardian * Intelligent as ever, Mina judiciously orchestrates suspense and anatomises issues of class - and even the nature of truth -- Financial Times The UK's finest living writer of crime ... No one gets under the skin of characters quite the way Mina does. She's sublime, and this book is too -- Abir Mukherjee * The Times * A characteristically thoughtful and complex thriller from Mina * Mail on Sunday * Authentic, compelling and written with wit so sharp it'll cut your fingers. Once again, Denise Mina shows the rest of us how it's done -- Erin Kelly A tightly wound thriller and a sharp portrait of the British upper class...Like most of Mina's protagonists, Claudia is complex and convincing...Money, corporate corruption, personal revenge: Each murder motive is revealed with impeccable timing. * Wall Street Journal * Part of what makes Mina such an interesting writer is that the science is a background to the moral and ethical questions she is posing ... taut ... the topics she chooses are serious and urgent' -- Scotsman Filled with intelligence, intensity, and empathy, The Good Liar is a taut, propulsive mystery about family, truth, and morality. Denise Mina is such a talent -- Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author of The Note Denise Mina sets the gold standard in crime fiction that is whip-smart, funny and insightful. This has it all: a cat and mouse game with the highest stakes, diabolically clever forensics, and characters that crackle from the page. Blisteringly good. -- Sarah Hilary, author of the Marnie Rome series This is Denise Mina at her blazing, blood-splattered best. Protagonist Doctor Claudia is the bee's knees, and you can tell Mina's having a blast in her company. You will too -- Lucy Worsley As persuasive as the storytelling is, the real hook is Mina's voice. Devastatingly angry and acidic, its sceptical, desert-dry wit gives Claudia and others - many of whom are more than they seem at first - the sharp edges that make this book gleam * Irish Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
462 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78730-428-4 (9781787304284)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Denise Mina
The Good Liar
The gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller from 'Britain's best living crime writer' (Sunday Express)
E-Book
07/2025
Vintage Digital
€8.99
Available for download

Person
Denise Mina is the bestselling author of the Garnethill trilogy, the Paddy Meehan series and the Alex Morrow series, as well as historical novels Rizzio, Three Fires and The Second Murderer, a Philip Marlowe novel for the Chandler estate. She has won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award twice, the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year twice, the Gordon Burn Prize and was inducted into the Crime Writers' Association Hall of Fame in 2014. Denise also writes graphic novels and plays, and presents television and radio programmes. She studied law and forensic examination at Glasgow University and taught criminology and criminal law part-time at Strathclyde University. Denise lives and works in Glasgow. The Good Liar is her twentieth novel.