Review: Beneath His Lies by Karen Randau

July 6, 2026

Synopsis:

A Mass Shooting. A Marriage Built on Secrets. A Truth That Won’t Stay Buried.

A night meant to celebrate thirty-five years of marriage ends in gunfire—and leaves Rita questioning everything she believed about the man she loved.

Rita had hoped their anniversary might steady a marriage that had begun to feel unfamiliar—one last chance to find her way back to the man she married.

Jared had been distracted and short-tempered for weeks, but dinner was surprisingly warm, a glimpse of the man she’d loved for decades. Then the theater lights dimmed… and in the next instant Jared was dead beside her, one of fourteen victims in a mass shooting that shatters the mountain town of Rim Vista, Arizona.

Her son Grant rushes up from Phoenix, and in the days that follow, the family gathers to grieve together.

Until the unbearable happens.

As Detective Cliff Avery digs into the shooting, he uncovers threads tied to Jared’s deployment as a Marine in Iraq—threads a more ominous than a powerful person. Rita doesn’t want to burden her children with what she’s learning about their father’s past—or risk destroying the memory they’re clinging to. But when her college-age daughter, Brooke, is kidnapped and the abductor demands paperwork Rita has never heard of, her silence becomes the wedge that tears the family apart.

Grant’s grief turns to fury.

Rita’s fear turns to resolve.

And the clock turns merciless for Brooke.

Forced to confront a past she never knew existed, Rita joins forces with Cliff to expose the truth behind the shooting and rescue Brooke before it’s too late. Every secret they unravel tightens the danger around them—and reveals that the massacre was never random.

Jared wasn’t the only target.

And the real threat is still out there—watching.

Review:

I stated in one of my reviews of the more recent books in the series that I felt we had moved a bit away from why I originally fell in love with it. While themes of family connections and bonds still play a role, this instalment was overall more of a mystery thriller than anything else. That doesn’t mean it was bad, though—it just felt like it had a bit of an identity crisis at times.
Rita and Jared are out celebrating the night of their 35th anniversary when the evening ends with Jared being killed. Something about it feels off, and soon afterward, Rita discovers things about her husband and his past that he had been hiding from her. At the same time, someone is determined to cover their tracks, and Rita finds herself caught in the crossfire, putting both herself and her family in danger.

If this had been able to stand on its own two feet, and if certain parts had been trimmed or skipped entirely (for example, the women’s shelter arc), I would have enjoyed it more for what it was. Rita’s search for the truth about what happened made for an interesting story, but overall, I wasn’t fully convinced.

🌙 Recension: Beneath His Lies (Families and Heroes Collection #5) by Karen Randau
📚 Genre: Mystery, H
📅 Release Date: March 3, 2026
📖 Publisher: ‎Strawberry Roan Press
📗 available in various formats – included in Kindle Unlimited
📱 Read as: Kindle
💸 I received a free copy and am voluntarily leaving a review.
🗣️ Language: English
📆 Pages: 314
⭐️ 3.75/5