Lie With Me is a thriller by Sabine Durrant, published in 2016. Set in London and Greece, it's narrated by Paul Morris, a down-on-his-luck chancer and serial womaniser who runs into Andrew Hopkins, an old friend from university, in a London bookshop. Andrew invites him to a dinner party, where he meets widowed lawyer Alice Mackenzie. Determined to get it on with Alice and replace her late husband Harry, Paul inveigles his way into a holiday on the fictional Greek island of Pyros, where Alice, Andrew, his wife Tina and their children are spending one last holiday before Circe's House, their holiday home, is demolished to make way for a new resort. It's also the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of Jasmine, a teenage girl who was last seen alive in Greece, and Alice has been running a campaign to find her, dead or alive.
Then everything starts to go horribly wrong...and Paul's past starts to catch up with him.
The book series provides examples of:
- Broken Bird: The deaths of Alice's husband and best friend have done a number on her. Florrie ended up like this as well.
- Chekhov's Armory: There are multiple objects that become important as the book progresses. The cloth and the spanner Paul finds in the truck, Tina's shopping list, the bottles of lye and the 'Let Zeus blow your mind' t-shirt are among them.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Paul likes to think he's this, but his thoughts about women and girls - especially Alice and Andrew's teenage daughters - are anything but chivalrous. He also barely remembers the names of women he slept with, including a Dutch woman he pulled in Greece, and Andrew's sister. His attitude does improve slightly after his time in prison, as he likes and appreciates his defence lawyer, Andrea Karalla, despite her not being particularly attractive.
- Dead Little Sister: Andrew's sister Florrie, who was a couple of years below him and Paul at Cambridge University, and was also friends with Alice, and died young thanks to Paul.
- Driven to Suicide: Florrie killed herself because of Paul. See It Meant Something to Me below.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Paul might be a sleazy, womanising sponge, but he is genuinely horrified when he finds out that Alice not only killed Jasmine - albeit accidentally - but she spent ten years running a search campaign to find her when she knew where Jasmine's body was all along and was constantly by Yvonne's side, acting like her friend.
- Evil All Along: Alice. She's arguably the most evil character in the book. And to a lesser extent, Andrew, as he helped cover up Jasmine's death and Louis' rape of Laura Cratchett.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Paul could give the Boy Who Cried Wolf a run for his money. His habit of lying about things, such as a book deal that never was or the time of his flight, ends up seriously biting him in the arse. Which is what Alice was counting on.
- Paul also tries to escape from the island by boat, but is refused by the captain as he hasn't got a ticket, and none of the passengers will buy one for him. He then finds Andrew waiting for him. Andrew reveals that he went down to the harbour to look for Paul while the police went into the town of Trigaki, because of a comment Paul made earlier about how, if he was Jasmine's kidnapper, he'd escape by sea as it would be harder to catch him.
- How We Got Here: Paul is in prison at the start and end of the novel. The majority of the novel tells the story of the chain of events that caused him to end up there.
- If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Both Andrew and Tina beg Paul not to hurt Alice, as she's pretty fragile after the death of her husband. It also turns out that Alice said the same thing to Paul when he was going out with Florrie, because she knew Florrie was vulnerable and easily hurt.
- It Meant Something to Me: This is a major plot point regarding Paul's relationship with Florrie at university. Paul only saw it as a fling, as shown by the fact he barely remembers Florrie's name and it only comes back to him after Andrew and Alice talk about her. Florrie lost her virginity to Paul and genuinely loved him, but Paul barely gave her a second thought and Florrie was so broken by Paul's cruelty and disregard for her that she killed herself.
- Mama Bear: Louis might be a difficult teenager, but Alice is still willing to protect him even if it means covering for him when he gets drunk and rapes a girl. Admittedly, this is partly to get revenge on Paul. Downplayed with Yvonne, Jasmine's mother, who wasn't that close to her. Some passers-by even speculate that she killed Jasmine.
- Rape as Drama: Laura Cratchett, the Geordie girl Paul meets on the bus to Pyros, is raped on a night out and Paul is later accused of the rape, not helped by some nasty comments Paul makes about the scantily-clad girls he sees in town. It's heavily implied that it was actually Louis who raped her.
- Really Gets Around: Paul, and it heavily informs his attitude to women and teenage girls, as he views them primarily in terms of attractiveness. He's just come out of a relationship with a younger woman when the story starts, and his Establishing Character Moment involves him hitting on a young bookshop assistant and feeling insulted to the point of wanting to physically hurt her when she clearly isn't interested.
- Scenery Porn: The part of the book set on Pyros is full of vivid descriptions of the scenery of the island. You can almost feel the intense heat and hear the cicadas.
- Shout-Out:
- Paul compares Laura to Rita Ora.
- A crossword in the paper is based around Under Milk Wood and Paul attempts to flirt with Alice and impress her by quoting lines from the play.
- Would Hurt a Child: Alice hit Jasmine while driving drunk and killed her. Jasmine was fourteen when she died, so legally a child.
