The Face Thief by Eli Gottlieb

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A powerfully dark and gripping tale of two men obsessed with one very charismatic, very damaged woman who’s determined to con from each of them everything she needs to survive.

The Face Thief by Eli Gottlieb begins with a stunning sequence - one that made me wince and flinch with every excruciating sentence. A woman is falling down the stairs and we get a running narrative of her body's physical trauma. Her orbital orb cracking, rib fracturing - However, in between the descriptions of breaking bones, we get the woman's emotional reaction with memorable, lyrical passages in stark contrast to the painful ones.

"Pain had a voice. It spoke to her as she shot off the top step and forward into space, patiently explaining that this was not how her life was supposed to end."

Who is this woman? Who pushed her and why?

By the end of the book, we get the simple answers to these questions, but, like the characters, the truth is very complicated.

As the cryptic title might imply, the novel is about a thief of property, as well as emotions. Though we find out about the events leading up to the woman's fall, her childhood, and part of her adulthood, we never find out her true name. Instead we are given various names she uses and identities she assumes in different situations, in order to steal something from someone. Each time she wears a different face - innocent child, bright ingenue, trustworthy businesswoman, admirable victim - so convincingly that she is able to manipulate everyone around her.

The novel tells the alternating stories of two men this seductive con artist attempts to deceive: one is John, a newlywed of comfortable means who is set up as a relatively cautious, but ultimately easily duped victim of fraud.

In fascinating contrast, the other is Lawrence, a psychologist trained in the science of nonverbal psychological "tells." He's skilled in instantly discerning lies or concealment, no matter how artful that person is. Lawrence is so successful at what he does that he teaches seminars on how to analyze facial and other physical features for business purposes. If anyone can spot and unmask a con artist, it would be Lawrence.

The narrative from his perspective is the most intriguing part of the book. In fact, if such a seminar were offered in real life, I would take it. As I read, I wondered how much of myself I was revealing without saying a word, with every unguarded expression, facial tic, movement, posture, choice of clothes, etc. Our every visible aspect and other subtle clues give away our inner selves, even those desires and fears we're not aware of, let alone those we want to conceal. Anyone skilled in reading the signs would have great advantage, even power, over others.

"..[T]hings aren't necessarily what they appear at first...we deal with the liminal...with the partial, the hidden. To the experienced reader, faces and bodies are like a kabbalistic text in which every word stands for something other than what it seems."

The Face Thief is an impressive work of character study. Gottlieb explores the psychological terrain of his subjects in riveting detail. The novel is not so much about which of the con artist's would be victims pushed her, but what makes each of these characters tick and how their secret natures, despite their attempts at self-control, drive them towards their downfalls.

Where The Face Thief falters is what happens after the woman wakes up in a hospital and is confronted by the police. The plot, involving incredibly quick, superhuman recovery and police custody which is both supertight and incredibly lax, simply lost me at this point.

Thank you very much to the Amazon Vine program for providing a copy for me to review!