Every Smile You Fake

Dorothy Koomson 

WHEN an experienced profiler and psychotherapist finds a baby boy abandoned on the back seat of her car, it opens the door on to a world of online menace that could bring deadly danger to both herself and her family.

But the past is never far away for Kez Lanyon, and with secrets of her own to guard, she might have no way of avoiding an unwelcome revisit to the shadowy corners of her life.

At a time when we are becoming more and more prey to deepfake, online radicalisation, child exploitation and extreme misogyny, the perils posed by the dark web are being exposed on an almost daily basis... and it’s a topic that popular author Dorothy Koomson is not afraid to tackle head on.

Koomson (pictured below), whose wickedly clever novels have earned her the sobriquet Queen of the Big Reveal, works her special magic on this gritty, emotion-packed and heart-stopping psychological thriller which plunges readers into the terrifying dilemmas of a young social media influencer.

‘Please take care of my baby. You’re the only one I can trust with him. Don’t try to find me. You’ll put him in danger.’ 

Despite her years as a professional therapist, Kez Lanyon is shocked when she finds a baby in her car after a book event at a library, and an unsigned note asking her to take care of him.

Kez, who has occasionally helped the police, and worked in prisons and other institutions, has a pretty good idea who the mother is...  20-year-old Brandee, a popular social media star with a troubled background who once lived in Kez’s family house. Brandee recently dropped out of the limelight and if the internet rumours are true, Kez knows that Brandee’s life is in danger. But what she doesn’t know is when Brandee had a baby, who the father is, and where the young woman is now.

Kez is torn. Should she wait and hope that Brandee turns up safe and well, should she simply take care of the baby as she has been asked to do, or should she risk her whole family by returning to her dangerous past where less-than-legal contacts from her previous job could be the only way to help save this woman? Meanwhile, time is running out for Brandee... can Kez find her before it’s too late?

Koomson delivers a multi-layered mind maze of festering secrets, moral dilemmas and simmering tensions as the truth and lies of Brandee’s current life – and Kez’s past life – spill over into shocking revelations, emotion-packed discoveries and a race-against-time mystery. And with a narrative that alternates between Brandee’s many social media posts – which include disturbing events and revealing behind-the-scenes content – and Kez’s desperate battle to track down the missing woman both online and in the real world, the speculation becomes wilder and the possibilities more blood-chilling.

In classic Koomson style, each character – not least the intensely complex Kez – is superbly drawn and the twists and turns keep coming in a plot littered with questions about identity, safety on line, and what the author describes in her ‘bonus content’ at the end of the book as the internet’s deep and seemingly endless ‘rabbit hole’ of terrifying danger. So take a deep breath, prepare for a rollercoaster ride, and you’ll be racing to the end for a final reveal that ensures the Queen of the Big Reveal won’t be losing her crown any time soon!
(Headline Review, paperback, £9.99)