Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent

Publish Date: June 12, 2018

On the surface, Lydia Fitzsimons has the perfect life—wife of a respected, successful judge, mother to a beloved son, mistress of a beautiful house in Dublin. That beautiful house, however, holds a secret. And when Lydia’s son, Laurence, discovers its secret, wheels are set in motion that lead to an increasingly claustrophobic and devastatingly dark climax.

Lydia Fitzsimons wins for Best Psychopath of 2018! Take a bow, Lydia!

I have read a lot of thrillers about psychopaths, but this one TOPS THEM ALL. This book has the craziest cray cray character of all. Lydia takes the cake. If this is a contest, she beats out Amy Dunne of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, and Paul Strom of Best Day Ever by Kaira Rouda.

This book is a riveting psychological thriller that delivers a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat. I heard about it from my fellow bloggers first, and then discovered the glowing Goodreads reviews. It definitely lives up to the buzz. It’s crazy creepy, and often made me gasp in horrified fascination. Luckily, Lydia is a fictional character, but it makes me wonder ~ who walks among us that might be the real life version of this psychopath?

A psychopath is defined as “a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior.”

I never really understood what that meant until I read this book. The story is told from multiple perspectives, including Lydia’s. The reader literally gets into her head and is privy to her real thoughts and feelings which most often contradicts her behavior and words that she says in front of others.

This family drama spans many years and is set in Dublin about two families linked by a murder. At the heart is a dysfunctional AF mother-son relationship. Each character shares their perspective side by side with the others.

At first, Lydia seems like a normal, sane, rational person who faces unfortunate circumstances. But slowly throughout the story, I realized that Lydia’s head is totally screwed up. It took me a while to catch on, because the clues come slowly at first as she recounts her stories with care and vulnerability, and makes the reader trust her. However, the other character perspectives from her son, Laurence and the murder victim’s sister, Karen, made me see Lydia in different ways.

Beneath Lydia’s carefully polished facade is a mean, cunning, despicable, evil, manipulative, lying, stealing, cheating woman who can barely count as a human being. She will do anything to get her way.

I gradually loathed Lydia but I kept reading because the writing is very engaging and I wanted to see how this turned out. It was NOTHING like I expected. Usually books have some sort of closure, ending, or something that neatly wraps everything up in a pretty little bow. NOT THIS BOOK! It left me gaping with my mouth hanging open, and had me shaking my head with shock.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars