The thriller section of your favorite bookstore or library is full of books that boast one novel idea, but disappear by chapter five because they don't have anything else. Amy Tintera's Listen for the Lie is full of “others.”
The main clever idea is that Lucy, the amnesiac heroine (or anti-heroine) of Listen, is unsure whether she committed the book's central murder, which occurred five years earlier. That means no.
This is “other”. A journalist named Ben's True Crime Podcast tries to get to the bottom of the murder. The victim was Lucy's best friend Savvy. And Lucy is a very interesting narrator. And those who still believe Lucy did it include not only herself, but also her parents and ex-husband. And Lucy's decision to return to the crime scene for the first time in years is the first of many heinous choices, including her affair with Ben, a possible affair with an ex-boyfriend, and agreeing to be interviewed on her podcast. It's nothing more than that.
Tintera isn't the first thriller writer to capitalize on the popularity of crime podcasts, but the reason she's been more successful than, say, All the Dangerous Things' Stacey Willingham is because she includes podcast transcripts. Because it is. It is used in place of a flashback to explain the events leading up to Savvy's murder. As Lucy listens to (and we read) each episode, she becomes convinced that she must find out who killed her friend, no matter what.
Lucy is an irreverent fellow, even if she is a murderer (first sentence of the book: “A podcaster decided to ruin my life, so I buy a chicken”). Tintera also creates some interesting supporting characters, including Lucy's understanding high school friend and her grandmother, Beverly, from whom Lucy gets her sense of humor. When told that she was too old to drink much, Beverly's response was, “Why not?The way I see it, it seems like the perfect time to develop a drinking problem.'' It’s boring as hell around here.”
Speaking of drinking, Tintera wisely avoids “Girl on the Train”-like tropes of a protagonist too vain to present us with a reliable image of what's going on. . Although Lucy isn't used to a cocktail or two, she is sober for almost the entire time in “Listen” and once swallowed, she has no recollection of what happened the night Savvy died. And the rest of the novel feels believable. And I'm satisfied.
This is Tintera's debut thriller and her previous books were aimed at younger readers, so I can't wait to read more from her. Young readers' loss may be thriller lovers' gain.
listen to the lies
by: Amy Tintera.
the publisher: Holt, 333 pages, $26.99.
