Lie Catchers -- Paul Bishop

Paul Bishop is former L.A. cop, a reality TV star (Take the Money and Run),  and a writer.  On the TV series Bishop used some of the interrogation techniques that he'd become expert in as a cop, and this expertise plays a big role in his new novel, Lie Catchers.

Jane Randall, the novel's narrator, is recovering from a gunshot wound, another of the calamities that have given her the nickname of Calamity Jane.  She's assigned to work with Ray Pagan, a cop who seems to have his own rules.  That's because he's the best at what he does, interrogations.  He wants Randall to work with him because she has a special ability.  Pagan does, as well.  There's just a bit of woo-woo at work here, but Bishop makes it all believeable.  The reason Pagan's so good at his job is that he's an empath.  Randall can literally see when a person is lying.  The two of them together would have a tremendous advantage in interrogations.

Their first call is about a kidnapping of a child, but before long there's another kidnapping.  Could these two seemingly disparate cases be related?  You bet your bippy, and soon enough murder gets added to the complexity of the web being woven.

It takes good police work to get to the bottom of things, but the heart of the novel is the interrogation scenes, and these are intense and expertly handled.

Bishop knows how to tangle things up and to get them unraveled in fast-moving prose.  But wait!  There's more!  The book includes two nonfiction essays, one on Bishop's first arrest and one on his last.  These are both fine reading in their own right, so you get plenty of bang for your buck in Lie Catchers.  Check it out.