Peter Caine is a merciless Manhattan defense attorney who may seem to be charming on the outside. However, beneath the mask, he is a cold and heartless man who doesn't care about other people's feelings. He doesn't even harbor any feelings for his own son Jamie, and he is less than pleased when he has to take him in after Peter's ex-wife dies. But, his life will change dramatically when his ex-lover, the daughter of the Manhattan DA is murdered and Peter is one of the suspects.

Reading a book about a sociopath was, to be honest, not a nice experience. I like to at least feel some sympathy for the main character. However, it was a nasty experience spending time inside Peter's head. Also, I had a hard time understanding why someone would find him charming. Yes, a sociopath can be charming, but he was so far from charming. Treating everyone in the book as crap that I mentally scratched my head wondering what women saw in him? In flashbacks, we can see how he met Juliette and married her. Frankly, he was so appalling that I can only think that Juliette married him because he reminded her of her own father. A man she despised. Yeah, I still can't understand what she saw in him.

As for the mystery part, the murder of Charlie Doyle. I found it very easy to figure out who had done it so no surprise towards the end of ONCE A LIAR. My main problem was how to deal with Peter being more and more a likely candidate for the murder, is he being framed or did he do it? And do I care? And, it's just my struggle with that what makes this book actually interesting. How to deal with a really loathsome main character? You usually want the person in question to innocent and proven so in the end. But, what if he's really really nasty? Yeah, let's just say that I'm still struggling a bit with the ending.