# Listen for the Lie

By Amy Tintera

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/listen-for-the-lie-f12cb3df/

Lucy Chase left Plumpton, Texas, with a murder accusation she couldn’t disprove. Five years after her best friend Savvy died, a true-crime podcaster starts asking questions, and Lucy comes home to a town that has already decided she did it. The gap in her memory leaves her with the same question.

## What makes it funny?

Waiting to be fired, Lucy plans a chicken dinner to soften her boyfriend’s discovery that she is a murder suspect. Her problems arrive with the inconveniences of an ordinary bad workday. Readers in book groups single out her funny, flawed personality and her grandmother as particular pleasures, alongside the mystery’s twists.

### The comedy at work

Lucy uses dry, sometimes vicious observations to manage other people’s fear of her. Even a boss’s spotless office makes her think about his potential as a killer. The podcast transcripts let us hear the accusations against her, while her own chapters supply the private retorts.

### Try this if…

For readers who want a murder mystery with a prickly narrator and room for dark jokes. The chapters alternate with podcast transcripts, so the public investigation sits alongside Lucy’s account of herself.

### Good to know

Reader-reported content notes include domestic violence and traumatic brain injury. Some readers found the story slow or predictable and didn’t finish it. Others especially praised the audiobook performance for making the podcast sections sound convincing.

## What to expect

- Genre: Crime & thriller · Mystery
- On the shelf: Comic noir
- Kind of humor: Dark comedy · Dry wit
- The atmosphere: Irreverent
- Audience: Adult
- Format: Novel
- Length: 432 pages
- Published: 2024

## A few distinguishing details

- A murder suspect who cannot remember the crucial night
- Podcast transcripts alongside Lucy’s private account

## Sources & further reading

- Publisher: [Listen for the Lie, Penguin Books UK page, ISBN 9781804993781](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/460764/listen-for-the-lie-by-tintera-amy/9781804993781)
- Author commentary: [Author](https://www.amytintera.com/listen-for-the-lie)
- Review: [Publishers Weekly review](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781250880314)
- Reader discussion: [Reader discussion](https://facebook.com/groups/bookrecommendations/permalink/26708578318790295)
- Reading sample: [Opening chapters](https://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/listen-for-the-lie/excerpt)
- Publisher: [Publisher](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/460764/listen-for-the-lie-by-tintera-amy/9781804993781)