If you thought interest in true-crime podcasts peaked a couple of years ago, steel yourself for a new genre: crime fiction that incorporates such a podcast into its plot. While Tintera’s is not the first novel to combine the two, it’s one of the most entertaining.
Tintera uses the novel’s podcast material smartly, giving the reader entire chapters that consist of transcripts from the Listen for the Lie podcast, the airing of which costs Lucy her job in the opening chapter.
Five years earlier, her best friend was murdered after attending a wedding in Texas. Lucy was the last person seen with her and was found wandering the streets with the victim’s blood on her dress and her DNA under her fingernails. Her alibi? After a blow to the head, she can’t remember anything – which makes this not-so-cold case perfect podcast material.
While authorities considered Lucy the prime suspect at the time, they lacked the evidence to convict. Ever since the incident, she has attempted to start a new life far away from her small-town Texas upbringing. All seems to be going well – including sales of her three romance novels which she writes under a pseudonym – until that podcast hits the airwaves and gains national media attention. “Now, when you scroll down to read what people think of my fluffy fake-dating romcom, the first thing you see is, ‘This is written by Lucy Chase, the woman who murdered her best friend.’”
Pivoting off the podcast allows Tintera to explain in colourful detail the various theories about the crime from colleagues, family and friends, with some snappy and revelatory observations. One of her ex-classmates sums up the community’s feelings. “Do I have to be politically correct about murderers now too? Jesus Christ. She was a bitch, okay?” Other interviewees speak of Lucy’s vicious mood swings and aggressive behaviour.
All of this, though, makes for an endearingly imperfect narrator: feisty, defiant and happy to drive five hours to confront one of the podcast’s contributors. Listen to the Lie’s presenter effectively becomes the investigating detective and the pair’s unusual relationship keeps the whodunnit aspect of the novel fresh and engrossing. As Lucy reasons at one point, “If you can’t be friendly with the podcaster who’s trying to prove you killed your best friend, who can you be friendly with?”
But for the most part, Lucy’s first-person narration doesn’t help her case, as it includes a “secret voice” that is constantly telling her to kill many of the people she meets. “Hitting him with your car is bo-ring … Put your hands around his neck until you can feel the life drain out of him.” Even her own family: “Do you ever imagine bashing your parents’ brains in?” It’s a dimension of the novel that develops some Thelma and Louise-type energy as the story progresses and we find out more about that best friend she’s suspected of killing and some of the goings on preceding it.
If that all sounds a touch dark, Tintera’s debut thriller – and her first book for adults after a series of bestselling young adult novels – is a lot of fun, a perfect page-turner for a long flight; even when its plot gets a little over the top in its later stages Lucy’s self-aware, snarky humour keeps things engaging.
