To Love A Liar is, primarily, a novel about love. It is also about putting your trust in those who then betray you.
Police officer Chris Fletcher is a man with secrets. Hiding away in remote Scotland, he awaits the verdict on the death of his undercover ex-lover and one time target, Sophia Roy. His innocence hangs by a thread, but telling lies is what Chris was trained to do.
I came to write this novel in 2022, but had been mulling the idea since reading, Undercover, by journalists Paul Lewis and Rob Evans, back in 2014. Undercover is about police infiltration into activist groups and the unmasking of officers during the late 1990s, early 2000 and I was captivated by this – not only from a moral standpoint but from an emotional one. Moreover, it is still relevant today because of the ongoing independent inquiry into its morals – or indeed, the lack thereof.
The Special Demonstration Squad unit, commonly known as the SDS, was born out of an unstable time in history, founded to try to maintain public order when activism was increasing at an alarming rate. Some groups were hell-bent on creating chaos and spreading violence. Others, however, were just trying to make a positive difference.
The unofficial motto of the SDS was ‘to obtain information by any means necessary’. As such, regulations were not put in place, and in some cases officers went to extreme lengths to deceive their targets. Sometimes extreme lies are absolutely necessary; after all, undercover police officers risk their lives for others. But at other times they are not. Sometimes these lies do more harm than good.
To really understand the perspective of the victims of police infiltration, I read Deep Deception, written by the female activists who experienced those police tactics first hand and the devastating consequences. Some of these women tracked down the men who betrayed them and thus inspired Sophia’s story, though Sophia’s story had a very different ending.
However, it is not only the activists that have been impacted by these lies but also the families of the undercover officers and, indeed, the undercover officers themselves. Chris was a fascinating character to write. He thinks himself a good person, who had done the right thing by his seniors. But living a double life, and trying to do the right thing when the right thing itself was murky and unclear, equated to loss of identity, and subsequent deep trauma.
Interestingly when I have talked about the book at events, I have had people voicing concerns that it’ll be either too anti-police, or too pro-police for their tastes. But everyone in this story has a voice and has empathy, indeed that was why I wrote it. Because it is not a simple hero and villain story, but a human one.
To Love A Liar by L.V. Matthews is published by Viking, Penguin UK. Paperback, 9.99.
