Book and Audio Review: White Lies by Jayne Ann Krentz

White Lies
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz
Narrator: David Colacci & Kathy Garver
Series: Arcane Society (Book 2)
Publication: Brilliance Audio (July 24, 2008); Berkley (January 23, 2007)
Length: 8 hours and 48 minutes; 395 p.

Description: Bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz takes us beyond the everyday boundaries of the mind—and the heart—in the second Arcane Society novel. 

Level-ten parasensitive Clare Lancaster has resigned herself to the fact that she may never find a suitable mate. A human lie detector, any falsehood—no matter how subtle—sets her blood racing. And most people, to one degree or another, hide behind a façade.

Including her business titan father’s new “consultant,” Jake Salter. His careful conversation walks a delicate line between truth and deception, revealing and resisting. But it is with his help that Clare begins to unravel a web of conspiracy and murder involving the powerful Arizona family that she just became a part of seven months ago. Caught in a dizzying storm of secrets, lies, and half-truths, Clare and Jake will plunge into an investigation that demands every bit of their special gifts, as something more than mere attraction sparks and sizzles between them…

My Thoughts: Clare Lancaster is a human lie detector, a Level 10* according to the Arcane Society. She is also the result of a one-night stand between her mother and Archer Glazebrook who has made it big in Arizona real estate. She only met him recently and has become good friends with her half-sister Elizabeth. 

When Elizabeth emailed her in San Francisco asking for help, Clare dropped everything to go get her. Elizabeth was being set up to be murdered by her husband Brad McAllister. He had convinced everyone, almost including Elizabeth, that she was having a nervous breakdown. But Clare knew that he was an especially evil kind of liar even though everyone else though he was a great guy. When she goes to confront him, she finds him shot to death in his home. Some, including Brad's mother, are convinced that Clare murdered him.

Brad's mother who happens to be married to Archer's former business partner Owen Shipley has made it her business to disrupt Clare's life. She has caused her fiance to drop her and the foundation that employed her to let her go. She has even managed to sabotage Clare's job hunt with other foundations. 

When Archer asks Clare to visit Arizona, she is free to do so but not to eager to return to Arizona. When she arrives, she meets Jake Salter who is supposed to be consulting with Archer about pensions and benefits for his business. But Jake has another agenda. He's a part-time investigator for J&J, the Arcane Society's primary investigators, who is looking for some evidence that a new cabal is working in Arizona.

Jake is also a high level talent; he's a Level 10* hunter. He's a little suspicious of Clare when he first meets her but he is also powerfully attracted to her. Clare knows she didn't kill Brad but is determined to find out who did. Her investigations and Jake's begins to overlap and the two become partners as they try to keep each other out of danger.

The story was filled with action, romance, and Krentz's usual quirky characters and witty banter. I liked that there were two narrators. David Colacci and Kathy Garver did a good job with all the male and female characters and also did a good job keeping up the tension in the story. 

Favorite Quote:

"The way I see it, if people couldn't lie, they probably wouldn't be able to live together in groups, at least not for very long oe with any degree of sociability. And there you have the bottom line."

"What bottom line?"

She spread her hands. "If humans could not lie, civilization as we know it would cease to exist."

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.