Book Review: Hollow of Lies

Title: Hollow of Lies

Author: J.J. Jax

Date: 2024

Quote: "For most people, Pine Hollow would be idyllic."

For Emily, Noah, and Oliver, it's the little town where a would-be whistleblower was murdered. They work for three different law enforcement agencies and don't initially like each other. They bond by facing the dangers of investigating the murder together.

So, what do they find, exactly? Where, for that matter, is Pine Hollow? We are not told. This "novella" is all about the main characters' emotions; those emotions are felt as if they were taking place inside the mind of a young hormone-ridden writer. The writer is enjoying the "thrills" of working out the emotional core of the plot. The novella would be a more effective "thriller" if the writer had done the research to put in enough information from the real world to convince us that the characters might be real people who are feeling their feelings about real events. At one point we're told that, minutes after finding a box of documents, the characters know they've found all the evidence to prove the case. What evidence would that be? What case? We are not told...

Some readers may like to meet Emily, Noah, and Oliver. What mattered to the writer has been written into this book; the characters' feelings and relationships are well enough drawn to interest readers. I think the book would have been much better if the author had taken the time to build a scene for the characters to emote and relate upon.