Effie Gillis is a history professor teaching at a major university. She is also a survivor - of a troubled childhood, two failed marriages and numerous relationships which, for the most part, ended badly. In her maturity she finds herself a source of solace and an object of desire for men who, like her, have aged but who, unlike her, remain obsessed by all the insecurities and superficial needs of adolescence.

Now, out of her past, arrives a man who is familiar and yet mysterious; mature, wise, and full of youthful energy. His presence is a reassurance, but he also carries with him an aura that is menacing. Slowly she becomes dependent on a relationship that's rich in truth and promise - but doomed by the lie that gave it life.

Drawing on both minor and major characters from his two previous novels, The Long Stretch and The Bishop's Man, Why Men Lie is a story of longing, love and loss in middle age.