From Amanda McCrina, the acclaimed author of Traitor and The Silent UnseenI’ll Tell You No Lies is a riveting YA novel of the Cold War era about a girl in post-World War II America who becomes entangled with an escaped Soviet pilot and must learn to decipher truth from lies.

New York, 1955. Eighteen-year-old Shelby Blaine and her father, an Air Force intelligence officer, have just been wrenched away from their old life in West Germany to New York’s Griffiss Air Force Base, where he has been summoned to lead the interrogation of an escaped Soviet pilot. Still in shock from the car accident that killed her mother barely a month earlier, Shelby struggles with her grief, an emotionally distant father, and having to start over in a new home.

Then a chance meeting with Maksym, the would-be defector, spirals into a deadly entanglement, as the pilot’s cover story is picked apart and he attempts to escape his military and intelligence handlers—with Shelby caught in the middle. The more she learns of Maksym’s secrets, including his detention at Auschwitz during the war, the more she becomes willing to help him. But as the stakes become more dangerous, Shelby begins to question everything she has been told, even by her fugitive friend. Allies turn into enemies, and the truth is muddled by lies. Can she trust a traitor with her life, or will it be the last mistake she ever makes?

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
An Amazon Best Book of the Month
A Fully Booked by Kirkus Reviews Editors’ Pick

A fast-paced, twisty story that keeps readers on their toes . . . This spy thriller is peppered with rich period details. Shelby’s character feels like an authentic portrayal of an intelligent, college-bound teenager of the time, lending the book the realistic air of the past come to vivid life. A fascinating dive into a segment of history that reverberates today.”

—Kirkus