New Year’s Eve, 2010 in St Davids, Wales. While Heledd Dawson was across the road at a New Year’s Eve party, her husband Jack and five of his friends were at her house, downstairs from her young son Huw. But when she returns home, Huw had disappeared, only to be swiftly found dead at the nearby cliffs at St Non’s. No blame was ever apportioned, but no rationale was found for how and why Huw left the house… And each of the sixth friends lied in their statements.

One decade later, Heledd is found dead in a field. While there seems to be no obvious cause of death, a police investigation ensues, with ex-police officer Mallory Dawson recruited to look into the cold case of Huw’s death. But people are never keen to admit the truth behind their lies, and at least one person will kill to protect themselves…

First of all, a round of applause to the blurb writer on Amazon. “For fans of Clare Mackintosh and Robert Gold” presumably because Clare’s most recent books are set in Wales and Robert wrote a book called Eleven Liars. You can see what they did there…

OK, back to the book, and this is the second Mallory Dawson book following the excellent The Birthday Girl. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t under the impression that The Birthday Girl – serial killer in a hotel on an island isolated by a storm – was the start of a series. Necessarily, Mallory has moved on from that hotel, otherwise they would have no guests after book two, and I’m guessing that she’s going to be settling in St Davids, as this time round, time is taken to set up her situation in such a way that there are clear directions for her story – and those of her family, friends and co-investigators – to develop in future books, most notably with her son, Toby, and her police liaison Harri.

As for the mystery element, Sarah has her work cut out as I’m never a massive fan of cold case investigations, even Five Little Pigs. There’s also a slight struggle with the concept, the idea that every person in the house told a lie, because simply by the nature of the situation, unless all six are complicit in a major crime – which they’re not – some of those lies are fairly slight, and at least one is more of an omission, rather than a lie, something that is actually pointed out, to be fair.

There are three central mysteries to keep the reader busy. Was Huw murdererd? Was Helen murdered? Was the person who was smashed to pieces by a hammer murdered? OK, the last one is a yes, obviously, but there’s a complex set of events here with lots of secrets to be uncovered and a well-hidden murderer.

I think it’s a brave choice to write a very different sort of mystery for book two in a series, but it works very well here. Sarah’s plotting and character work is strong and it’s a real page turner, as with everything she writes. While I think I did prefer The Birthday Girl, this is still an excellent read and does a good job setting up the series for the future. Looking forward to the next one.

The Sixth Lie is out now from Canelo in ebook and paperback. Many thanks for the review e-copy from NetGalley.