Book Review: Believe Me | J. P. Delaney

A dark and twisted thriller that lured me into the story and captured my thoughts until the very last page! There is no one in the psychological thriller genre who can write such captivating, loathsome, alluring characters as J. P. Delaney. Early this year I was enthralled by his last book, The Girl Before (see my review). This one is somehow even better. I could not separate myself from this book. Everything about it was so carefully crafted, from the story to the characters to the writing techniques.

And what to say about those twists!?! I read this with a group of my Traveling Sisters and because we were always at very slightly different points in the book, our opinions and theories kept misaligning in a good way. That is how often Delaney has you rethinking everything in this book! Nearly every chapter led me in a different direction.

About the Book

Claire Wright is an actress who was blacklisted in the UK, and takes up coursework in New York City for a fresh start. Despite incredible talent, without a green card Claire isn’t much better off in the U.S. Struggling to live her dream, Claire finds some unconventional work ensnaring cheating husbands for a divorce firm. Sure, it doesn’t make Claire feel great, but it is work that uses her beauty and skills and intelligence, and allows her to continue her studies.

Claire always follows the rules…

Always appear available. Don’t approach them first. Always let them be the one to proposition you. Don’t actually sleep with them. Get the evidence, return it to the wife, and don’t speak of it to others. Claire has never struggled to seduce men. She finds this is a job she was made for.

Until one entrapment doesn’t go as planned and the game changes…

Claire finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. The first mark who doesn’t go for Claire’s charms ends up with a dead wife by morning. The police want Claire’s help to capture a dangerous killer. Claire goes undercover, but finds herself confused as she gets to know him. At what point does the mask we put on become who we really are?

Reflection

In college I was a double major in literature and psychology. Though in my doctoral degree I chose to pursue psychology, literature has a very special place in my heart. I took a French Literature course where we read Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal in the original French. This book is heavily crafted around Baudelaire and so I was immediately drawn in.

One thing I always remember about studying Baudelaire was his passion for contrast. Highlighting the incredible beauty of the grotesque and challenging our sense of propriety. Baudelaire pushed boundaries beyond many poets and writers of his day. His poems tend to leave me breathless. They leave me mesmerized but disgusted. The beauty of his words and verse contrasted with the dark imagery are really something to behold.

“Never fall for anyone who prefers to speak someone else’s words.”

I think some readers will find themselves hating his poetry that appears in this book, and that is a completely valid reaction. But I always think of Baudelaire as testing people. Showing people that they can actually be attracted to things that horrify them. Delaney showcases this power in his book, both through Baudelaire’s life and poetry, and through the story of the novel itself. I don’t want to spoil anything about the plot, but I will say that the characters of Claire and Patrick are so perfectly crafted to mirror the feelings that Baudelaire’s evokes in readers. I am absolutely captivated by this story.

I found it interesting that Delaney actually did the translations for this book himself. They are incredibly good translations! Translations of Baudelaire’s work tend to bring some controversy, because it is very difficult to capture the meaning, beauty, and horror of Baudelaire’s poems in a translation. I am in awe of Delaney for the skill it took to craft such great translations. The inspiration for this book is the work of Baudelaire, and to capture that essence of his writing for an audience that has less knowledge of him is incredible.

“Sometimes, when you wear a mask too long, you find it sticks to the skin.”

Onto some other reflections on this book. This book really plays with the line between reality and fiction. Claire is an actress and early in her career she learned the difference between pretending and acting. To act, she learns, you have to feel what the character is feeling. You have to let a part of yourself become the character. And then, as she learns throughout the book, it can be difficult to tell when you are acting and you have become the character. I loved reading about Claire, both in what she acknowledges, as well as what Delaney allows us to see as observers of her story.

And then there is a strong theme of trust and deception. Many of the characters in this book talk about trust. It becomes central to every element of the story. The most fascinating use of this theme is in the way that characters are unsure whether they are deceiving not only others, but themselves. The characters have so much introspection, despite how narcissistic they are. Like Baudelaire, the contrasts and paradoxes are the beauty in this book. A character might be both strong and fragile, honest and deceitful, alluring and repulsive. A character may both desire the spotlight but spend their life hiding. A character may be trusting and mistrusting. These contrasts kept me on my toes. I wasn’t ever sure where the narrative would spin next, and I loved every moment of it.

“Those are always the most interesting characters: the ones who deceive themselves. Because sooner or later, the deception always falls apart.”

I read that Delaney had actually written a book like this nearly seventeen years ago, under a different title. The book was published but didn’t take flight. When Delaney went to republish it following his recent success with The Girl Before (which you should really go read), he felt that there were flaws in the original work. He rewrote it from scratch and says it is “completely different in plot, characterization, and structure.” Well, Mr. Delaney, I did not read the original version of this book, but I would like to go on record saying that this recreation of your original idea is a true masterpiece.

This book is pure chaos and terror and love and torture and poetry. I loved it!

Thank you to Random House and J. P. Delaney for my advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.