"A highly intelligent thriller that burrows backward through time like Houdini explaining a trick. An automatic book-of-the-year." – Lee Child In the Company of Liars is a truly original thriller, strikingly fresh and unpredictable. Told in chronological reverse, from its enigmatic end to its brilliant beginning, the novel is centered on a woman who is on trial for murder-Allison Pagone, a mother caught between competing forces, each represented by someone who may not care if the pressure kills her in the end. A prosecutor wants Allison convicted and put on death row. An FBI agent believes she can squeeze her into ratting on her family. A daughter and an ex-husband need to save their own skins. And circling them all: a group who would prefer to eliminate her quietly and anonymously, but who also are not what they seem. Our first picture of Allison is in the moments following her death. The story then moves backward in time like the cult film Memento: an hour earlier, then the day before, back and back to the beginning, until we can see what's really happened-and, most shocking, what hasn't. At every turn, Allison Pagone knows that what she sees may not be what's real. The only sure thing is her place in a vortex of half-truths, threats, and suspicion. When her nightmare is over, will she awake in the company of friends -or in the company of liars?