FRAUD by Peter Davey

FRAUD Reviews

• 
  Jenny Lloyd

  I bought this book because it is a finalist in the eFestivalofwords, best novel category, so I thought ‘it can’t be bad, then’. What a surprise I got! It was absolutely brilliant. It is responsible for my having fallen behind with everything else I had planned to do, and a couple of too late nights. Not that I’m complaining; I loved it from start to finish.
  
  Here’s the background story;
  Nicola Carson, prize-winning novelist and award-winning, beautiful, young actress has lost the plot and ended up in re-hab.
  Dominic, publisher and wanna-be author, about to leave his publishing job in London to embark on a new life in the States with his girlfriend, discovers a forgotten manuscript which will cost him his girlfriend, his job, and change his life forever. He also discovers that Nicola Carson has a murky secret in her past; a great big lie which he is determined to expose in order to right a wrong, though he is aware that the exposure will be his big ‘scoop’ which will pave his way to becoming the best-selling author he longs to be, so his motives are not altogether altruistic.
  Posing as the manager of Nicola’s online fan club, Dominic gains Nicola’s trust and persuades her to believe he wants to write her biography. But when Dominic was planning to destroy Nicola Carson he didn’t allow for the unexpected – that he would fall in love with her after meeting her. Little lies lead to bigger lies….
  
  
  Fraud is a brilliant piece of writing; polished, intelligent, witty, ironic, shrewd, wise, and an oh-so-poignant satirical exposure of the realities in the world of publishing. Buy it, read it, and vote for it to win in the Efestivalofwords ‘best novel’ category, because novel-writing rarely gets better than this.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Valerie Poore

  Having read Peter Davey's short stories and enjoyed them, I thought it was time to read his novel, Fraud. I almost don't know how to do this book justice. I think it is just brilliant. Apart from being very well written, the plot is an almost terrifying adventure into the terrible tangles people can get into by telling lies - lies that have to become increasingly involved in order to remain concealed and so have to be compounded with other lies to conceal the truth of the lies. 'What a tangled web we (he) weave(s) indeed'. However, none of the main characters sets out to do harm, and that is the ultimate joy of this book. They are all so forgivably human, and I can imagine backing myself into the same kinds of corners as the quirky, sincere Ted, the immature but loveable Dominic, and even the searingly direct but wildly volatile Nicola. Then we have Anne, Ted's wife and Katie, Dominic's girlfriend as well as a whole plethora of other secondary characters who all have their turn at stirring the plot, so to speak. The story weaves all over the place taking the reader from the bleak coast of south east England to the bright lights of the BAFTAs, from Australia to Cornwall and back to London again. Every time you think you know the truth, Peter Davey reveals something new to take the story off down another suspense filled avenue. In the end, though, you can still love everyone regardless of what has happened and know they have all done the best they could despite the mess they have created. As I said, brilliant!
• 
  Wendy Janes

  Dominic, a young writer, visits actress and author, Nicola, while she receives treatment in rehab. Having gained her trust, they start to work on producing her biography. However, all is not as it seems. What are Dominic’s real motives for wanting to write her biography? Is her fragile temperament due to something more complex than burn-out? What links a struggling author, Edward, to both Dominic and Nicola?
  
  What an engaging tale. Initially you think you’re going to read the story of how Dominic gets Nicola’s story, but what follows is something so much deeper, and so much more fun than an author interviewing a star. The flashback scenes serve to explain and obscure the truth, and just when you think you have the story straight, the sands shift. Uncovering the layers of deception from different perspectives makes for excitement and intrigue. My only quibble is that some of the explanations of past events feel a tiny bit repetitive.
  
  While the presentation of each character is excellent, Edward is my favorite. His dogged persistence, his dream of having a successful writing career, his resignation to the path life takes him, all combine to make a fully rounded character. As ever, I love Peter Davey’s prose. His ability to craft a sentence with confidence and natural ease makes his writing a pleasure to read.
  
• 
  Sam Russell

  I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
  Fraud is an original, compelling story about the events which follow when the paths of three aspiring creatives (two authors and an actress) cross entirely by chance.
  It’s a tale of ambition, disloyalty and deceit with an intricate, well-paced, page-turning plot and characters so perfectly formed that I found myself rooting for them despite (or maybe even because of) their less endearing traits.
  An excellent book, thank you Peter Davey. I hope there’s more to come!
  
• 
  Elizabeth Lloyd

  “Fraud” is a complex story in which all the main characters practise deceit. And yet from the beginning the reader is charmed by the protagonists and intrigued by their motivation.
  
  The story is centred on Nicola Carson, a stunning actress and celebrity who has been admitted into a psychiatric rehabilitation clinic because she is bipolar and suicidal. Visiting her is Dominic Sealy, an unpublished novelist and unemployed editor. Why is he so interested in Nicola and what are his motives? Despite his obvious subterfuge, Nicola latches on to him, persuading him to take her from the psychiatric hospital to live at his London flat.
  
  Nicola’s fame is based on a best-selling novel called “Loss” which she published at the age of 22 and yet as soon as she had been offered a starring role in a film, she had abandoned her writing career and became an Oscar winner and the face of Chanel. Dominic reveals that he wishes to write her biography but his interest in her is his conviction that she had never actually written “Loss.” Despite his opinion, they are drawn into a relationship with each other and we are anxious to discover who is really the deceiver.
  
  Travelling back 6 years we meet Ted Hamer, another unpublished novelist, on his 55th birthday. Supported by his wife Anne, a solicitor, he is able to concentrate on his writing but he has received a rejection letter for the novel of which he was most proud. With Anne away, he goes to the local pub for a meal where his mood is not improved by the rude waitress who serves him. At the end of the evening he talks to the waitress about her equally depressing day and offers to walk her home. Circumstances enable Ted to see more of the waitress and budding actress, whose name is Nicola Pearson.
  
  As the “tangled web” of deceit is created we find ourselves warming to Dominic and Nicola and we want to know more about Ted’s life. Tragedy seems inevitable, since no-one seems worthy of trust and yet each character shows essential humanity, which might be the redeeming grace of the novel.
  
  From beginning to end I was compelled to read on, anxious to discover who was responsible for each plot machination and whether there was the possibility of good coming from their mutual fraud. This is a surprising and inventive novel, well worth reading.
  
• 
  Bodicia

  This is certainly a novel which will keep you guessing as Peter Davey leads us on a search for the truth in a story who asks who is actually telling it. When Nicola and Ted have a chance meeting in a pub where she is waitressing, he recognises a kindred soul who is trying to succeed in her chosen craft, just as he has struggled to do. Hers is acting and his is writing and they make a connection which leads to her success at his price. Dominic, an editor, reads Ted’s manuscript and likes the look of it but one thing leads to another and it sits in his bottom drawer until the day he leaves the publisher’s and finds it again as he empties his desk. In the meantime Nicola has gone from strength to strength about the same time that Ted and his wife Annie call it a day on their marriage. As Ted plummets, Nicola soars high but she has her own demons and they aren’t the only ones fighting back.
  
  I liked this story and the complicated weaving of the telling of it. With a thread of humour and two main characters many an author can relate to in Dominic and Ted.
• 
  Brenda Perlin

  Fraud by Peter Davey is an effortless escape, a book that wowed me from the very first page. This story is smart and vividly told which blazes on like an inferno.
  
  What caught my attention right away was the writing. Then the story. The narrative is crisp, believable and without any doubt, sharp as a knife.
  
  The story grabs hold and doesn't let go until you are forced to close the book. I was enthralled with the smart delivery and the ease in which this story flows. Fraud is a very fun read.
  
  Quote ~
  
  "Yeah, but you don't believe me, do you? It's a cliché, isn't it? The little movie star whining about how fame is so boring, and having all that cash is so boring, and being recognized everywhere   you   go   is so boring. 'Yeah right' everyone says, and who can blame them? I know I'm just a spoilt bitch who's got far more of everything than she deserves. But it's true. You get to a point where you just look around and think 'where next?"
• 
  Jo

  It's not very often that a book has me so hooked I will literally give up a night's sleep to get to the end. This book did. At first it seemed like a rather familiar detective-type story where someone gets a whiff of something fishy and goes off in search of the truth. The fact that the sleuth also happens to have worked in publishing made this a little more interesting for me, as I am a writer myself.
  However, about a fifth of the way in to the book things suddenly start getting very interesting... and confounding. And they pretty much stay that way until the end of the book, but in a very good way that keeps you turning the pages. The need to find out whether your suspicions are correct keep the momentum going and even though I myself was not satisfied to find I had the wrong end of the stick, it was still a fantastic read and a mind-blowing rollercoaster ride of tension and suspicion.
  Well worth the read! I look forward to reading more by this author.
• 
  Elaine Jeremiah

  I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It gripped me from the first page. I found the characters and story compelling. There were so many twists and turns in the plot and I found my allegiances to the characters constantly shifting. I liked the way that none of them were black and white; there was good and bad in all of them.
  
  The story was obviously well researched with a lot of detail about the business of publishing. It was believable and I liked the way the author mixed a bit of romance with a lot of intrigue. When describing Nicola Carson's time in rehab, the author treated the sometimes thorny issue of mental illness with a great deal of sympathy which I thought was good and realistic. As to how the story would be resolved, Davey kept me guessing right to the end and when it came it was hugely satisfying.
• 
  Lynn Dixon

  The book, Fraud, by Peter Davey, is a tale of a troubled actress who manages to win the hearts of her fans and the men around her. She is seen as a ‘damsel in distress’ and many want to help her. We first see in a psychiatric hospital where she is being observed after a suicide attempt. Nicola Carson, her stage name, is also known as a bestseller author of a book called Loss. It turns out that she did not write the book and there are key players whose lives are affected by the actual fraud. Ted Haymer, the real author, his wife, Anne and very importantly, Dominic Sealy, a former publishing agent, all experience a host of twists and turns as the firestorm plays out. The theme seems to simply say that ‘If one tries to live a lie, it will eventually unravel his or her life’ as we see with Nicola Carson.