Once Upon a Lie (Maeve Conlon Series #1)

by Maggie Barbieri

Overview

Maggie Barbieri will mesmerize readers with Once Upon a Lie, a gripping novel about family, justice, and the choices we make that define who we are.

Maeve Conlon's life is coming apart at the seams. Her bakery is barely making ends meet, and one of her daughters spends as much time grounded as the other does studying. Her ex-husband has a new wife, a new baby, and a look of pity for Maeve that's absolutely infuriating. Her father insists he's still independent, but he's slowly and obviously succumbing to Alzheimer's. And now, her cousin Sean Donovan has been found dead, sitting in his car in a public park in quiet Farringville, New York, shot through the head.

There was never much love lost between Maeve and Sean and she's not exactly devastated by his death, but suddenly the police are poking around asking the family questions. It's just one more hassle Maeve doesn't have time for, until she realizes that her father, whose memory and judgment are unreliable at best, is a suspect in the murder. Maeve is determined to clear his name, but is she prepared to cope with the dark memories and long-hidden secrets that doing so might dredge up?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250055033
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/11/2014
Series:	Maeve Conlon Series , #1
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

MAGGIE BARBIERI is a freelance editor as well as a mystery novelist. Her father was a member of the NYPD, and his stories provide much of the background for her novels. She is the author of books including Murder 101, Extracurricular Activities, and Quick Study.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

 

 

The recipe was simple:

Take one old guy with budding Alzheimer’s, a cast of characters who had never met a potato they didn’t like, and a dead body in a closed casket. Add accusations and recriminations to taste. Mix well and bake for two hours from either three to five or seven to nine.

Voilà. Once everything cools to a simmering rage, you have an Irish wake.

Maeve had set aside exactly seventeen minutes for paying her respects to her cousin Sean. Any longer than that and she’d be late for Rebecca’s soccer game, something she had promised her oldest would never happen again after last week’s embarrassment. Being late to the game was bad enough, but forgetting the cut-up oranges? Apparently, that was an offense punishable by death. Or at least the collective stink eye from a bunch of mothers whose greatest daily decision was grande or venti.

Traveling with an octogenarian with a faulty short-term memory was slowing her down; she was now down to thirteen minutes. Add to that the uncomfortable creeping of a pair of unruly Spanx and Maeve could feel her composure begin to crack. “Come on, Dad. Let’s get in line,” she said after signing the guest book. She looked at the names of the other mourners who had signed in before she did and noted all of the usual suspects: the McDonoughs, the Dorseys, the Trainors. All were people from her past, and all were people who, if asked, would say that they had helped raise poor, motherless Maeve. All were people who probably felt at least partially responsible for the meager success she had achieved in life. All were people who had turned a blind eye to her situation and who were therefore partially responsible for what had happened to her.

She spied her father heading toward the Giordano wake across the hall; she grabbed his arm and pulled him back. It seemed definitely more appealing as wakes went, what with the tiny yet vociferous mourners and the misplaced scent of salami wafting out, but it was not Maeve and her father’s ultimate destination. Now down to just ten minutes of meaningful visitation, she hustled him into the black-clad queue of visitors that had formed in the short time it had taken her to write her name and address in the guest book. In her head, she was listing all of the items she’d need to pick up from the store after this jaunt, spectating at a soccer game, and shuttling her dad back to the assisted-living facility. Sean Donovan’s death, and the scheduling of his wake, had proven to be incredibly ill timed.

As they approached the casket, which was closed—much to the disappointment of the gaggle of Irishwomen from the neighborhood who had turned out—Maeve surveyed the room, her eyes settling on two guys who could have been family members, their ruddy complexions and ill-fitting suits two defining features of the Conlon men. It dawned on her quickly: cops. She had been raised by one and had spent enough time around his friends that she could spot one a mile away. Two? That was easy. When they traveled in pairs, they really stood out in a crowd. The rumpled blue suits and worn cordovan loafers were a dead giveaway, no pun intended. She didn’t have to wonder what they were doing there; Sean had been found in his car in a deserted section of Van Cortlandt Park, a hole in his head that he really didn’t need, as he was prone to saying while he was alive. That his pants were around his knees and he had a glove box full of unopened condoms didn’t lend credence to his wife’s story that he had gone out for a gallon of milk, but it did lend a layer of sordidness to the story that Maeve found more than a little amusing.

“What’re the po-po doing here?” Jack asked, nodding in the direction of the cops. Over at the inappropriately named Buena del Sol, a landlocked facility for people like Jack, they watched MTV a little more than Maeve would have cared for.

She shushed him and pulled him closer. His were failing faculties, but he was in good physical shape; even still, his strength, as he tried to pull away from her, was surprising.

“Why are we here?” he asked for not the first time that day.

“Sean, Dad. He died.”

He gasped, as he did every time she reminded him of the fact. “From what?”

In the past six days, she’d made up a different cause of death every time he asked, and she was running out of reasons her healthy, a little-over-half-century cousin had passed on. “Chronic diarrhea.”

“I hear that’s a terrible way to go,” Jack said, shaking his head sadly. He seemed genuinely chagrined despite the fact that Jack’s nickname for Sean while growing up was “shit for brains.”

Funny. She’d always thought that Jack would kill him.

The widow Donovan, Dolores, rooted in her rightful place in front of the casket, beckoned Maeve forward; Maeve felt that she had to oblige. She pulled Jack along with her, his focus on Sean’s toothsome eldest daughter, a girl who apparently thought that wearing a low-cut cocktail dress was the way to go at her father’s wake. When they finally arrived to pay their condolences, Dolores threw herself into Jack’s arms, the old man not entirely sure what he was to do with a hundred and eighty pounds of soft, quivering, taffeta-encased flesh. Maeve interceded and wedged herself between the woman and her father, whispering her condolences while wondering how she could extricate herself and Jack and get the hell out of Dodge without attracting anyone’s notice.

Two minutes to go. She raced over to the casket and knelt beside her father, his eyes closed in prayer. He may not have known who was in the casket, but he certainly remembered how to say a prayer for whoever it was. Jack was a daily communicant at the assisted-living facility, not remembering that in his old life—pre-Buena del Sol—he was a shitty Catholic who hadn’t been to church since his beloved wife’s funeral almost four decades earlier.

Maeve took in the flower arrangements piled high around the gleaming mahogany coffin; Dolores had spared no expense. She looked at the photo collage that Dolores had undoubtedly implored her daughters to create on behalf of their beloved father. Sean at the beach; Sean at the Yankee game. Sean with his hand on the shoulder of his nephew Brian as Brian was confirmed. Dolores and Sean’s wedding day. Maeve eyed the rosary beads draped over the top of the casket, wondering if Sean had even known how to say a decade of the rosary while he had walked the earth. To anyone watching, Maeve must have looked like a grief-stricken family member whispering her last good-byes to a beloved relative. She was certain she heard the sympathetic clucking of the old women who sat in the row of chairs directly behind her, touched by her studied composure in the face of an unspeakable tragedy.

Truth be told, she had more feelings for old man Giordano, laid out in the room across the hall, going to his eternal rest amid the cries of more emotional mourners, than she did for the man who lay beneath the wood on which her fingers were splayed.

“Bye, Sean,” she whispered. “See you in hell.”

 

Copyright © 2013 by Maggie Barbieri

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/14/2013
Barbieri takes a break from her Murder 101 series (Extra Credit, etc.) with what starts out as a standard suburban mystery but evolves into an unexpectedly riveting tale of ordinary cruelty and complicated heroism. When Sean Donovan, a pillar of the Farringville, N.Y., community, is brutally murdered, his cousin Maeve Conlon, an overworked baker and divorced mother of two, finds herself dragged into the investigation after the police begin to suspect her father, Jack Conlon, of committing the crime. Det. Rodney Poole refuses to disclose why he believes Jack, a genial ex-cop with severe Alzheimer’s, killed his nephew. Desperate to protect her family, Maeve responds by fabricating an alibi for Jack. Maeve’s troubles worsen with her discovery that a patron of her bakery, Michael Lorenzo, is beating his wife and child: she must choose between clearing her father’s name and protecting Tina and Tiffany Lorenzo. All the characters are sharply drawn, particularly Maeve, whose dark humor and stoic attitude mask an unshakeable moral core. The details of Maeve’s connection to Sean and Michael unravel with excruciating slowness, and Barbieri skillfully avoids tipping her hand until the last possible moment, leaving readers both breathless and unnerved by the novel’s conclusion. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Schneider Gelfman Agency. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

[A] riveting tale of ordinary cruelty and complicated heroism…All the characters are sharply drawn, particularly Maeve, whose dark humor and stoic attitude mask an unshakable moral core. The details of Maeve's connection to Sean and Michael unravel with excruciating slowness, and Barbieri skillfully avoids tipping her hand until the last possible moment, leaving readers both breathless and unnerved by the novel's conclusion.” —Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

“[Barbieri] takes readers on a dark ride through the life of an abuse survivor. This in-depth look at the daily thoughts and feelings of the heroine is intriguing. The story hooks readers until the shocking end. This reviewer is looking forward to more from this talented author.” —RT Book Reviews (4½ stars, Top Pick)

“An excellent, edgy thriller. Maggie Barbieri breaks new ground with this provocative new novel showcasing one burnt out mother's desperate determination to protect her family's future by facing down her past. Secrets, betrayals, stunning revelations. This book has it all.” —LISA GARDNER

“Wow. What begins as a wry and witty suburban mystery soon becomes a darkly powerful tale of family secrets, loss, and revenge. Surprising, sinister, and quietly disturbing.” —HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN

“Once Upon a Lie's Maeve Conlon is a terrific heroine—funny, smart, brave and, above all, real.” —ALISON GAYLIN

“Once Upon a Lie is a clever, spicy, humorous and insightful story of what can happen when long-suppressed memories and dark secrets are kept buried too long. Maggie Barbieri digs deep beneath the serene surface of suburbia where forbidden things happen and delivers a surprising, suspenseful and satisfying story.” —MARY JANE CLARK

From the Publisher

★ 2013-11-25
The creator of the college-themed cozies in the Murder 101 series (Extra Credit, 2012, etc.) goes big in her first stand-alone. Maeve Conlon's life is finally back on track after her husband, Cal, left her for her beautiful Brazilian best friend, Gabriela. A Culinary Institute grad, she's made a success of the Comfort Zone, the gourmet shop she owns in Westchester County. And she's making progress toward mastering single parenting: Her older daughter, Rebecca, is acing high school, although her younger daughter, Heather, may be hanging out with the wrong crowd. Maeve finds time to help her ex-cop father, Jack, adjust to life in Buena del Sol, the care community he moved into when Alzheimer's disease started stealing his memory. She also summons up the courage to accompany Jo, her longtime friend and business partner, on her foray into speed dating. But her most promising prospect of the evening, the charmingly evasive Rodney, turns out to be a police detective. And Rodney's got his sights set on Jack for the murder of Maeve's cousin, Sean Donovan, who was found a short time ago in Van Cortlandt Park with his pants down and most of his head gone. Although there was no love lost between Maeve and Sean, who bullied her mercilessly as a child, Maeve needs to pay attention to her cousin's murder, if only to protect Jack. Soon, Maeve finds her life again spiraling out of control as multiple allegiances compete for her limited supply of patience. Grace and humor mark this tale of a woman trying to protect her family without losing herself.

Kirkus Reviews