Q&A – Liar, Liar by Lisa Jackson

What inspired you to write LIAR, LIAR?

LJ: For years I had the idea of a woman in a blond wig, all dressed up, her gauzy scarf blowing in the breeze as she, in high heels walked across the desert and offered to give her baby away. The scene just wouldn’t go away. It was burned into my brain and I saw it like a movie for maybe five or six years, but I had no story to go with it. There were just too many unanswered questions that came up. What happened to her after she gave up her child? What happened to the baby? Who took the baby? Why did the woman in the scarf give the baby up?

I had no idea.

Also, the idea seemed a little over the top and went nowhere, so I wrote other books.

But the woman in the blond wig who became Didi Storm wouldn’t go away and so one day last year I just started writing to see where the story would go. I chipped at all of the roadblocks that had been in the way as I wrote and I realized that the heroine of the book was not the woman in the scarf, but her grown daughter, Remmi.

So that “first scene” in my head was actually not the first.

Why did you set a good portion of the book in Las Vegas?

LJ: It was the desert. In my mind’s eye, I saw Didi in the desert and I felt the bright lights of Las Vegas would make a sharp contrast and also make sense because the woman I saw with her vintage Cadillac looked like someone straight out of the 1950’s and I didn’t want to set the book in that era. So I thought she could be an impersonator and would include Marilyn Monroe in her repertoire.

I had to have a reason that she was dressed in the Marilyn Monroe costume and that made sense to me. I also wanted her to be a wily woman with a lot of tricks up her sleeve, a person who wasn’t trustworthy.

So how does Remmi fit in?

LJ: Remmi’s a woman of today. She witnesses her mother’s horrible act of selling her infant –Remmi’s half sibling– in the exchange in the desert and has been adrift for years.

You also have a killer at that scene, one who calms himself by singing an old Sunday school song. What was that all about?

LJ: Oh, right! The Marksman. I wanted him to have more than one or two dimensions. You know get in his head a little bit, introduce some of his back story without giving his identity away. So the song, This Little Light of Mine, is kind of a juxtaposition to his murderous intent, something with which, maybe, the reader can identify. I actually think it makes him all the more venal, part of a deep-seeded evil.

The hero of the book isn’t exactly a stand-up guy.

LJ: No. I guess not. Maybe none of the characters all; they are all definitely flawed, but I hope he comes across as real. I kind of fell in love with Noah Scott as I wrote the book and I take that as a good sign.

Would you say that this is a story of two main characters, Didi Storm and Remmi Storm.

LJ: Somewhat. This is really Remmi’s story, but she’s so wrapped up in what happened to her mother and Didi is such a big part of the book, there’s a great deal about her.

Will we see another book with the characters from Liar, Liar?

LJ: I’m not sure. As I said, Remmi and Didi’s stories have been told, but there are a couple of characters who might turn up in a future book. I tend to do that. I like to revisit some of my fave characters and I’ve learned to never say “never” about future books as in so many things in life. So, maybe. Anything’s possible!

In this riveting page-turner from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson, a woman searches for the mother she hasn’t seen in twenty years, and uncovers a nightmare of greed and deception . . .

In death, Didi Storm is finally getting the kind of publicity that eluded her in life. Twenty years ago, the ex-beauty queen worked the Vegas strip as a celebrity impersonator, too busy trying to make it big to spare much time for her daughter, Remmi. Shortly before she leaped from a San Francisco building, Didi’s profile was rising again, thanks to a tell-all book. To Detective Dani Settler, it looks like a straightforward suicide, or perhaps a promotional stunt gone wrong. But Remmi knows the truth isn’t so simple. Because though the broken body on the sidewalk is dressed in Didi’s clothes and wig, it isn’t Didi.

Remmi was fifteen when she last saw her mother. Their parting came in the aftermath of a terrible night in the Mojave desert when Remmi—who’d secretly stowed away in Didi’s car en route to meet her crush, Noah Scott—instead became witness to a mysterious rendezvous. Didi handed over one of her newborn twins to a man Remmi didn’t recognize. Subsequently, Didi disappeared, as did Remmi’s other half-sibling. Remmi has pleaded with the authorities to find them, but there have been no clues. Yet she’s always had the sense that someone is watching her . . .

If the victim isn’t Didi, who is it—and what’s the connection? Remmi is shocked when Noah resurfaces. He was also in the desert that night, and now runs his own PI firm. He too believes it’s time to find out what really happened. As they and Detective Settler dig deeper, the truth about Remmi’s missing family begins to emerge . . . a story of ruthless ambition and twisted lies that someone will kill again and again to keep hidden . . .