Toxic Masculinity and Female Rage: Katherine Greene's Where the Truth Lies

This week, I talk with writing duo Katherine Greene, aka Claire C. Riley and A. Meredith Walkters, about their new small town thriller Where the Truth Lies!

We dive into:

• Writing a thriller inspired by real-life events and the challenge of balancing fiction with truth
• How this story came from Abbi’s family history and a decades-old newspaper clipping
• The emotional difficulty of writing characters based on real people vs. fictionalizing them
• Crafting multiple POVs + dual timelines to build tension and a fuller picture of the crime
• Exploring toxic masculinity and how it develops, including how “nice” men can be influenced
• The concept of the “perfect victim” and how readers often unfairly judge women vs. men

Where The Truth Lies Synopsis

A picture-perfect couple's sordid past threatens to rock a sleepy southern town to its core.

Told in alternating timelines and inspired by real events, this multi-POV thriller explores toxic masculinity, gender-based violence, and female rage in the tradition of Darby Kane.

Childhood sweethearts Rhett and Lucinda seem to have the perfect marriage, the child they always wanted, and even the white picket fence. But fifteen years ago, the couple came very close to losing everything. When outsider Jennifer Moore arrived in their tight-knit Kentucky town, a brief but explosive affair between the newcomer and the soon-to-be-married Rhett stirred up a violent storm of betrayal that ended with a dead body and a mystery riddled in corruption and deception.

Now, new evidence has surfaced-including an eyewitness who places Rhett at the scene of the brutal crime. Soon, the carefully constructed life Rhett and Lucinda built starts to crumble-and the truth waiting beneath the surface could destroy them both.

In a town steeped in deadly southern charm, secrets don't fade-they fester.

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