Behind the Lie by Emilya Naymark

 

Release date: February 8, 2022

Subgenre: Psychological thriller, Private investigators

About Behind the Lie:

 

 NYPD detective turned small town PI Laney Bird is in a fight to save lives—including her own—after a neighborhood block party turns deadly.
 

A transplant to the upstate New York hamlet of Sylvan, all Laney wants is a peaceful life for herself and her son. But things rarely remain calm in Laney’s life—and when her neighborhood summer block party explodes in shocking violence and ends with the disappearance of her friend and another woman, she’ll need all her skills as a PI to solve a mystery that reaches far beyond her small town.
 
As people closest to Laney fall under suspicion, the local authorities and even her colleagues question her own complicity. And then there’s fifteen-year-old Alfie, her complicated and enigmatic son, obviously hiding something. Even as Laney struggles to bury evidence of her boy’s involvement, his cagey behavior rings every maternal alarm.
 
Laney’s personal life unravels as she’s drawn into her missing friend’s dark secrets and she realizes she and Alfie are in danger. With treachery blazing hot as the searing summer sun, Laney fights to save lives, her family’s included.

Excerpt:

 

 July: Laney

Laney Bird, momentarily overcome with panic, strained to find her son amid the surging, shouting crowd. Then her training kicked in, partially clearing the fog of day-long drinking, and she steadied, bare feet firm on her lawn, hand brushing against her hip where her gun would have been if she’d been working.

But she wasn’t working; she was instead one of the ten hosts of this monstrous party—more of a street fair as far as she was concerned. Who had block parties with four hundred guests?

Her neighborhood did, that’s who. And things had decidedly turned hairy. She cataloged the dozen or so people dialing 911, the Duboises’ wrecked living room, that obscenely incongruous truck inside her best friend’s home.

It was no accident she’d been standing on the sidewalk between her house and the Dubois driveway during Oliver’s dramatic act of demolition. She’d spent most of the party halfway down the block in the game tent, taking on foosball opponents between swigs of sangria. At some point during those hours, her son had readied an amp and microphones and played a set with his HS jazz band.

Later she glimpsed him by their house, speaking with a girl. The light had faded by then and she didn’t recognize his friend, but neither did she try. She’d been practicing the Zen of Leaving Her Boy Alone, with varying success, since his last birthday.

Twenty minutes before midnight, before Oliver put an end to the festivities, she gave in to her impulses and texted her son, reminding him of their mutually agreed-upon curfew.

As she looked up from her phone and toward her house, she saw a figure dart away from her garage, cross the street, and melt into the unlit alley beyond. Unease soured the wine in her uncomfortably full stomach, and she poured the rest of her drink onto the lawn before jogging homeward. A quick walk-through showed her home to be dark, empty, cool, and quiet, though tinged with an unfamiliar scent, as if the party had infiltrated her rooms with its smoky, barbecue-perfumed and sunblock-ridden breath. She texted Alfie again, but her son was either ignoring her or busy. By the time the blue pickup shoved itself into her friend’s doorway a few minutes later, she was already balanced on the edge between irritation and worry.

The crowd parted for the EMS and police cars, and Laney stepped aside, her stomach cramping with adrenaline. When she heard the fire engines and caught a whiff of burning wood, she gave up any pretense of holding herself together and ran down the hill toward the flames, her shouts adding to the steady roar rising above her normally peaceful neighborhood.

The throng of guests multiplied. Some of the people who’d gone home earlier in the evening came back, crowding either in front of the spectacularly ravaged Dubois house or the more modestly ruined Forty-Six Oak. The fire had started in one of the back rooms, put forth enough flames and plumes of noxious smoke to terrify everyone, blackened the yard-facing siding, and was doused before causing serious damage. At least half of Sylvan’s firefighters had already been at the party, and they called the engine house within minutes of noticing the fire.

Laney scanned the huddled groups for her son, then texted him once more. It’s not that she thought he had anything to do with this fire. Why would she? She didn’t think this at all.

And yet. A tightness settled in her chest.

Amazon | Indiebound

About Emilya Naymark:

Photo by Lynn Breitfeller

Emilya Naymark was born in a country that no longer exists, escaped with her parents, lived in Italy for a bit, and ended up in New York, which promptly became a love and a muse. She is the author of the novels Hide in Place and the upcoming Behind the Lie, out February 8, 2022. Her short stories appear in A Stranger Comes to Town, edited by Michael Koryta, Secrets in the Water, After Midnight: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, River River Journal, Snowbound: Best New England Crime Stories 2017, and 1+30: THE BEST OF MYSTERY. When not writing, Emilya works as a visual artist and reads massive quantities of psychological thrillers, suspense, and crime fiction. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.

 

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