John lives in Johannesburg and he is a con artist. This is his story about tricking people into believing what lies he is telling them. John is a salesman and he will say anything to close the deal.
I found Selling A Lie to be an okay read. It is written in very short paragraphs and comes across as quite bitty. Each chapter is made up of snappy little bits strung together and your overall impression is of someone speaking English as a second language.
It is difficult to have any empathy for John as he is unashamedly a criminal with no morals. Having a poor start in life is no excuse and all John is interested in is making fast money for himself.
But as entertainment you should think of Selling A Lie in the same way as I enjoyed the 8 series of Hustle on BBC television. On TV the con artists had a long con practised against one or more marks. In this novel John does similar things which makes for very interesting reading as his tricks are explained.
Character development is not great but the detail of his scams is an education. This novel rightly highlights the pitfalls of the internet and mobile communications. It fully explores the issues around identity and trust. All the businesses and websites that you trust and use are called into question. It alerts you to footprints and visibility. Seeing society from the criminals point of view is quite revealing. For example, when people stroll along a street wearing a hoodie, you get the impression they may be dodgy and you remember them passing. However the same guy without a hoodie can pass you by unnoticed.
I found the gist of Selling A Lie to be a good story but it was let down by the quality of writing. It lacked editing, humour and sharpness. But it passed my quality threshold because of the detail of the scams involved and the educational value of this book as a whole. It also makes you wonder why there are so many SIM cards for sale and why people may be buying them! Selling A Lie gets 3 stars from me and I would not be surprised if it become a screenplay for a one-off television drama.
Selling A Lie was written in 2017 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.
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