Rating: 🤩‍

In order to appreciate First Lie Wins, one must suspend their disbelief quite a bit. You’ve got to believe it’s possible there’s a con ring out there so sophisticated that people have better tech than the government and that one person could actually be so powerful to make all of what happens in this book happen (including discovering low-level con artists like our narrator to train to begin with). Depending on your level of conspiracy believing, this might be easier to come by. For me it was less that and more that I enter each book I read accepting the rules of the world it gives me. Like even if it’s not dragons and magic fantasy, fiction is still fantasy, you know?

I say all that to say this book is a lot of fun if you let it be and don’t try to take it too seriously. While it’s not the super high-stakes scary thriller I expected, I was pleasantly surprised because I enjoyed it for the sort of cozy heist-like thriller it is.

Some readers might not love the narrator’s voice, as she can often seem emotionally detached from the situation—and also she’s the kind of narrator who is keeping secrets from the reader. That worked for me, though, because I got to figure out the core mystery over the course of the book. The end might be cheesy for some, but your ghoul loves a happy ending. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.