People have countless reasons for lying. Professor Joe Lyons and five graduate students are studying this by running tests in an attempt to gather data for evaluation. After one of these tests implodes, one of them is murdered. While the police work to find the murderer, so do the students. After all, who would know better than they do how to ferret out someone with something to hide?
THIS IS HOW WE END THINGS by R.J. Jacobs is a psychological thriller set in the world of academia. What I found particularly fascinating is that while the characters are well-versed in the aspects of lying, they often find themselves victims of deceit. Perhaps they don't know as much as they think. Capable as they are, their own secrets lead to their own undoing. Their relationships with each other are complex and they harbor secrets galore. The tension builds at a steady pace until events cause the narrative to race to its conclusion
Well-plotted and multilayered, R.J. Jacobs brings to readers an engrossing and exciting story. Taut and suspenseful, this book is thought-provoking. For those who enjoy a well-written psychological thriller, THIS IS HOW WE END THINGS is that book. Highly recommended.
Riley Sager meets If We Were Villains in a compelling new psychological thriller following a cohort of graduate students studying the psychology of lying—until one of them is discovered dead. But how do you catch a killer who may be an expert in the science of deception?
Campus is empty, a winter storm is blowing in, and someone is lurking in the shadows, waiting for their chance to kill again.
Forest, North Carolina. Under the instruction of enigmatic Professor Joe Lyons, five graduate students are studying the tedious science behind the acts of lying. But discovering the secrets of deception isn't making any of the student's more honest though. Instead, it's making it easier for them to guard their own secrets – and they all have something to hide.
When a test goes awry and one of them is found dead, the students find themselves trapped by a snowstorm on an abandoned campus with a local detective on the case. As harbored secrets begin to break the surface, the graduates must find out who's lying, who isn't, and who may have been capable of committing murder. It turns out deception is even more dangerous than they thought…
A foreboding new dark academia thriller of deception and suspense, This is How We End Things follows the unraveling of a close group of students as they contend with what it means to lie, and be lied to.