The Five Year Lie

“That message would rattle me coming from anyone. But coming from Drew, it’s heart-stopping. Because Drew Miller, the only man I ever loved, and the father of my child, is dead.”

The inciting incident of the novel is a text from Drew, who is believed to be dead. The diction and syntax communicate the impact of receiving the message on Ariel. The words “rattle” and “heart-stopping” build anticipation to the explanation. The last sentence uses two escalating qualifiers to describe the sender: He is Ariel’s beloved and also a permanent fixture in her life through her son. Finally, the last revelation concludes with the kind of surprise that typically characterizes thrillers: A dead man is sending messages from beyond the grave. This cliffhanger ends the chapter, prompting readers to continue the novel.

“A hot army vet who loves dogs? It was hard to believe he was real. And by midnight—when he finally kissed me on the moonlit pier—I would have followed him anywhere.”

Bowen, a romance writer, sets up her love interest to be appealing while introducing doubts about his seeming perfection. Ariel wonders if the man she fell in love with “is real”—a moment of irony that will only become apparent later in the novel. While Drew/Jay really is “a hot army vet who loves dogs,” he is not actually real; unbeknownst to Ariel, Jay disguised himself as Drew to investigate Chime Co. Combining the sexual desirability inherent in romance protagonists with the potential threat that marks domestic thrillers spurs readers’ interest.

“Without my uncle, it would have all been worse. Ray had to wear a lot of hats after my father’s death. He helped my mother untangle all the probate stuff. He was there when we needed him most.”

Ariel has been totally taken in by Ray’s seemingly generous personality; he has successfully positioned himself as the opposite of her abusive father, Edward, and has thus been able to couch his takeover of the company as kindly and protective. Describing him from her perspective as a supportive man “who [i]s there when [they] need him” makes the revelation of his true nature shocking—there is little hint at first that Ray could be responsible for Edward’s death.

“I lean over to see his monitor, where he’s pulled up the entry for another ex-employee of the firm. Bryan Zarkey stares out at me from the screen, with his name, his log-in handle and his termination date.

‘Remember this guy?’ Zain asks. ‘He was the cybersecurity guru before me.’

‘Sure. He quit around the same time as Drew.’ I remember having to clean out his desk, which was full of granola bar wrappers.”

While Ray is the novel’s mastermind antagonist, Bryan Zarkey works as Ray’s muscle and tech enforcer. Although readers do not at first know that Bryan is the malevolent Brainz, his presence is seeded throughout the novel. Here, the small clue that he left the same day as Drew is suspicious, but the novel’s many red herrings make it seem as though someone might have targeted both programmers.

“‘Do you really have a tattoo of Buzz Lightyear on your shoulder? What are you, twelve?’

He chuckled, and I felt the vibration against my fluttering chest.

‘That was my army nickname. Buzz.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘Well, I have this buddy named Woody.’”

The motif of the movie Toy Story not only keeps the tone of the thriller from getting too dark, but it also adds characterization and nods to the plot. Like the abandoned toys from the movie, Ariel must go on a journey after being left behind. At the same time, Drew/Jay is both a hero like Buzz Lightyear and a man who doesn’t take himself seriously and is thus able to sport a tattoo of a children’s toy.

“‘Too much like Hamlet.’

She laughs, and then our eyes meet over the rims of our respective margarita glasses.

‘This is weird,’ she says. ‘I know it is. But I’m going to hold my head up high.’”

Ariel’s mother admits that marrying Ray and letting him run Chime Co. makes her akin to Queen Gertrude from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, who is condemned for her hasty marriage to her brother-in-law. References to Hamlet continue throughout the novel: Ray is like Claudius, the secret usurper of the throne who marries the queen, while Ariel—like Hamlet—is charged by a voice from beyond the grave to seek out the truth and enact revenge.

“I only wanted one guy. And he didn’t want me back. He didn’t even tell me his real name.”

To explain the heightened emotional stakes for Ariel, the novel uses syntax to emphasize the depth of her love and the vastness of her pain: Short, grammatically direct sentences feel like quick slaps or panting breaths as Ariel tries to cope with overwhelming emotions. Drew/Jay’s lies about his identity are difficult to reconcile with Ariel’s hopes for a future with the “one guy” she loved; her need to resolve Deception in the Domestic Sphere is also prompted by the fact that Buzz will soon start asking about his father.

“Ray is a bit of a mystery. The guy is charming. Always telling a story. But his warmth has an oily quality to it. He’s too earnest. Too eager to be everyone’s best buddy. Maybe it’s a birth order thing—a psychological reaction to wading through life as Edward Cafferty’s brother. That man would as soon cut you as smile at you.”

Jay’s view of Ray undercuts Ariel’s blanket acceptance of Ray as a positive influence on her life. Having chapters narrated from multiple characters’ perspectives allows the novel to sow doubt about narrator reliability and also foreshadow later revelations. Here, Jay excuses Ray’s unctuousness as the result of “wading through life” in Edward’s shadow—Edward’s more blatant malevolence hides the ulterior motives of Ray’s put-on congeniality.

“One click and boom. Done. He’s just turned someone’s private video over to law enforcement, against their wishes, and in less time than it takes to order a burrito.”

Jay marvels at how easily private information stored on Chime Co. servers can be shared with law enforcement without the mandatory warrant. His comparison of the required effort to do something as inconsequential as “ordering a burrito” illustrates the impact of technology on personal lives—we are so conditioned to just accept the devices around us as beneficial and harmless that their abuse is simple to orchestrate.

“‘He wasn’t nice to us. Ever. And when things went wrong, he took a coward’s way out.’

‘You assume he did,’ she says. ‘But you don’t actually know what happened. None of us do.’

I stop walking. ‘What do you mean by that?’

When I turn to my mother, she has tears in her eyes. And I’m so confused right now. My mother doesn’t get emotional. She’s not a sharer, either. I’m pretty sure I learned it from her. ‘He wasn’t the kind of man to overdose,’ she says quietly. ‘He just wasn’t.’”

Although the novel features descriptions of two deaths by suicide, it does not have a particularly nuanced view of this sensitive subject. Here, Ariel is angry at the years of abuse she suffered at her father’s hands, so when she describes his death, she calls it “the coward’s way out.” This passage also adds another layer of mystery to the novel’s plot, as Ariel’s mother implies that Edward’s death may not have been self-inflicted or intentional. Since Edward died the same day that Drew/Jay disappeared, readers suspect that the events are linked; if Edward didn’t die by suicide, then Jay is potentially implicated in his death.

“That’s the thing about cameras—people always forget about them.”

Brainz’s ominous threat about the ubiquity and seeming invisibility of surveillance equipment highlights The Five Year Lie’s warning about the impact of technology on personal lives. As he spies on the novel’s protagonists, Brainz exemplifies the insidious misuse of cameras intended for protection and safety, increasing readers’ anxiety as the thriller genre dictates.

“Ariel is his personal Waterloo. That river he can’t cross. She’s one of the good guys. She’s the only bright light in his whole damn life right now.”

Having Jay declare in his own words how he feels about Ariel is important for the romance elements of the novel, raising the stakes for the protagonists. Not only do readers wonder if the characters will expose Chime Co.’s crimes and survive, but they must also now be concerned about the reunion of Ariel and Jay. The fate of their potential family unit hangs in the balance of the thriller plot.

“‘YOU ARE A TOY! A CHILD’S PLAYTHING!’ And Buzz stubbornly insists that he’s much more important than that. Dude, I know the feeling.”

The motif of Toy Story returns to help emphasize Ariel’s trajectory and add levity to an otherwise harsh situation. Ariel is feeling used by the man she loves, but having a cartoon toy yell her feelings lightens the mood. Her diction in the response supports this, with the slang word “dude” lending a casual, deflating humor to the revelation.

“He didn’t hit her, I told my therapist in college. But he would say anything. And the slap was, like, punctuation. A slap is hitting, Ariel. Men who strike their wives are abusers. And men who try to use shame and belittlement as weapons against their daughters are also abusers.”

Ariel has trouble acknowledging the emotional and physical abuse that Edward inflicted on her and her mother, downplaying him striking his wife as “punctuation” rather than seeing it as the assault that it was. Only when her therapist called her father abusive did Ariel acknowledge this fact. Her experiences growing up in an abusive household may explain her inability to see through Ray’s false veneer of kindness or through Jay’s disguise as Drew—an inability to correctly read people is often the result of childhood emotional trauma.

“Maybe we’re not wired to think like this—as if the whole world is our stalker.”

The novel’s most victimized character is Amina, a teenager who is blackmailed into being sexually assaulted after a crooked police officer, Ward, gets footage of her having sex. Here, Ariel refuses to blame the teens for forgetting that a camera was near them—typically, assuming that “the whole world is [one’s] stalker” is a form of paranoia. Unfortunately, predators like Bryan Zarkey also understand this, using it to take advantage of the vulnerable, highlighting the impact of technology of personal lives.

“‘She said—I did what Ward asked me to, because I thought I had to. And I asked what did she mean? And she told me—’

Omar swallows hard. ‘He asked her to get into the back seat of his car with him. To, uh, blow him. And she did it.’”

The sexual assault of Amina, as described here, is the crime that motivates Jay’s actions, deceptive behavior, and ultimate abandoning of Ariel. While the purpose of this revelation about the horror that Amina went through is meant to shock, it also falls into a specific thriller trope: the failure of law enforcement that necessitates vigilante justice of the type that Jay is trying to get. Since Ward is a police officer, Jay worries that there is little chance that the sexual assault will be investigated and punished appropriately.

“Don’t give up, Ariel. You won’t feel satisfied until you get some answers.”

Ariel’s narration makes it difficult to separate her true character from how she is feeling in moments of strife. This passage, which shows how Ariel comes across to external observers, hints at what she may actually be like: Her mother comments that Ariel’s dogged determination is a key personality trait—and, conveniently, this is also the quality required for an investigating protagonist in a thriller.

“‘At Chime Co., we’ll put anyone with a pulse on the warrant desk. Even me. Whoever set this up would be someone who understood that.’ He grunts his agreement. ‘Zain, can you find the first warrant for this judge? Wouldn’t we be able to see who set it up in the system originally?’”

This passage sets up the novel’s final twist: that Ray and Bryan were smart enough to frame Ariel as the one who entered the false judge for illegal warrants. Ray’s willingness to have Ariel take the fall for him echoes his earlier determination to use Edward’s supposed suicide to blame him for Chime Co. malfeasance. Unwilling to similarly implicate Ariel, Zain refuses to release the footage of Ariel and takes responsibility himself.

“Love you, miss you, need you. And a new thought, too. I’ll come back for you. Wait for me.”

Jay’s “new thought” signals how Bowen interweaves the romance genre into her thriller. Jay’s determination and devotion to Ariel move the plot in the direction of a happy ending. Fulfilling this potential adds more stakes to the final chapters.

“Money, drugs or pussy. It’s always one of those three things.”

Larri, Ariel’s best friend, crassly comments on the possible motives of the criminals behind Chime Co.’s misuse of private security footage. Her blunt explanation hits the nail on the head: Ray, Bryan, and Ward are indeed motivated by these three types of material gain. Illustrating that Greed Spurs Immorality, each of the men is willing to victimize others for money: Bryan sells drugs, Ray uses them to kill his brother and Zain, and Ward sexually assaults Amina.

“It’s Zain’s voice, but he sounds high-pitched and weird. ‘Ariel. Take bussan run.’ Then there’s a loud thunk before the sound cuts out.”

Zain’s death shows him as a hero: Even as he is dying, he warns Ariel about the danger. Zain’s cryptic message sends Ariel fleeing across the country as the plot meets up with the flash forward that opens the novel’s Prologue in the bus station. Zain’s death ratchets up the stakes before the climactic final showdown.

“‘This is Buzz,’ I say in a wobbly voice.

‘Buzz,’ he repeats slowly. He licks his lips and takes a slow breath. His blue eyes are trained on both of us. So steady. So serious. ‘Is he…?’ I nod slowly.”

The novel’s emotional climax occurs in this passage, when Ariel reveals to Jay that Buzz is his son. His immediate acceptance of fatherhood in a “steady” and “serious” way shows that Jay is living up to the responsibility in the way that Ariel would most want him to. The novel here positions Jay as a suitable love interest for Ariel, foreshadowing the “happily ever after” ending that romance readers expect.

“My intentions were better. But when I saw that video, it didn’t matter anymore. I wasn’t going to take you down with me. Even a one percent chance was too much. Revenge is a shitty lifestyle, baby. I learned that from you.”

Jay refuses to live in service of revenge, a motivation that ruins lives. Instead, he ensures his newfound family unit’s survival by prioritizing Ariel’s safety. Unlike Ray, who is willing to get rid of anyone who stands in his way, Jay doesn’t want to “take [her] down with [him]”—he would rather sacrifice himself.