Frances Aylor

In his mystery Trust No One, New Zealand writer Paul Cleve pushes the concept of the “unreliable narrator” to new heights. Protagonist Jerry Grey, a writer of crime novels under the pseudonym Henry Cutter, has developed early-onset Alzheimer’s at age 49 and finds himself unable to distinguish between fiction and reality. He confesses that some of his 12 novels were based on actual brutal crimes that he committed.

At first no one believes this gentle man could be guilty of such heinous behavior. But as the disease progresses and he becomes more abusive, the police suspect that he may indeed be the murderer. The challenge is to prove what actually happened when the primary suspect cannot remember the details of yesterday, or last week, or last year.

The novel is both a heartbreaking examination of Alzheimer’s disease and a thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end.

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