Podcasts, subreddits and social media: There are numerous methods to feed continuously hungry true crime fanatics. But the place does lore finish and reality start?
Lucy Chase is an Angeleno with a lethal secret . . . that she will’t even bear in mind. The snarky antihero of Amy Tintera’s Listen for the Lie has spent years away from her small, less-than-charming hometown of Plumpton, Texas, the place one night time after a marriage, her finest buddy, Savannah “Savvy” Harper, was discovered lifeless in the woods. Lucy was discovered on the aspect of the highway lined in blood and bruises, Savvy’s pores and skin underneath her fingernails. Everyone thinks Lucy did it—even her dad and mom—however thus far nobody’s been in a position to show it, although Ben Owens hopes to search out solutions together with his well-liked true crime podcast, “Listen for the Lie.” After Lucy reluctantly returns to Plumpton to attend her beloved grandmother’s eightieth birthday celebration, she’s decided to keep away from Ben and his probing questions, her nice-guy ex-husband, Matt, and the voices in her head urging her to kill. There’s only one downside: Ben is extremely persuasive and exceedingly enticing. Will Ben’s interviews with Lucy and the residents of Plumpton lead her to lastly bear in mind what occurred to Savvy—and to herself?
Tintera is each a New York Times bestselling younger grownup writer and a Texas native, and her grownup debut contains a protagonist who’s as laugh-out-loud humorous as she is advanced. Little does her household know, Lucy is a profitable pseudonymous writer of romantic comedies who’s nervous that her burgeoning profession will likely be broken if she’s unmasked as a possible assassin. Skillfully alternating between Ben’s podcast transcripts and Lucy’s compelling narration, Listen for the Lie grabs ahold of the reader from its first line—“A podcaster has decided to ruin my life, so I’m buying a chicken.”—and doesn’t let go till the jaw-dropper of a decision.
Unlike Lucy, Theodora “Teddy” Angstrom of Kate Brody’s Rabbit Hole nonetheless lives in her hometown; she even teaches at her outdated highschool. A decade after Teddy’s wild baby of an older sister, Angie, left for a celebration when she was 18, by no means to be seen once more, Teddy’s father deliberately drives off a bridge, leaving Teddy and her now thrice-widowed Irish immigrant mom to reckon with their difficult and tragic household historical past. What begins as an off-the-cuff look at Reddit threads about Angie’s disappearance leads Teddy down the titular rabbit gap—and to hypothesis that Angie is, actually, nonetheless alive. Does Teddy’s estranged half brother maintain the key? What about Angie’s teenage crush, Bill, now a neighborhood handyman and conspiracy theorist whom Teddy turns into romantically concerned with? And why is Reddit consumer and native school scholar Mickey virtually too keen to assist Teddy discover solutions?
Brody’s debut novel is each a suspenseful thriller and a provocative portrait of a damaged household. Teddy is a sharply clever and fairly cinematically flawed heroine—together with her weaknesses for alcohol, junk meals and, finally, firearms—who readers will nonetheless discover themselves rooting for. Cases involving younger, fairly lacking girls are veritable catnip for the on-line true crime group, who can and do challenge limitless speculations, theories and questions that always harm greater than they resolve. Teddy’s story urges readers to contemplate the actual folks behind the clickbait, who usually starvation for closure to no avail.
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