First Lie Wins

First Lies Wins is a 2024 psychological thriller by Ashley Elston. The novel follows Evie Porter, a con artist hired by a mysterious employer to infiltrate the life of a handsome businessman. Evie sinks deeper into this false life, and the job slowly starts to spiral out of her control. As Evie fights to complete the job without ruining her alias, she finds herself pulled into a series of events that threaten to expose her true identity and unmask the organization she works for. First Lie Wins is a tense, female-focused thriller that uses its pacey plot to think about identity, community, and the possibility of redemption.

Ashley Elston is an American author known for several works in the young adult genre, many of which are thrillers. First Lie Wins is her first publication in adult fiction. First Lie Wins is currently in production as a feature film.

This guide refers to the 2024 Pamela Dornan Books edition of First Lie Wins.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide refer to misogyny, gambling, substance dependency, and terminal cancer.

Plot Summary

First Lie Wins tells the story of Evie Porter, a con artist whose real name is Lucca Marino. Evie has been hired by a mysterious employer, known only as Mr. Smith, to infiltrate the life of a young, handsome businessman named Ryan Sumner. As is often the case with her jobs, Evie doesn’t know why she was asked to target Ryan; she only knows that she must make herself an indispensable part of his life and await further instructions. First Lie Wins oscillates between this present-day plotline and “interludes” detailing Evie’s previous aliases and jobs.

At the novel’s start, Evie has created an intense romantic relationship with Ryan and is moving in with him after only two months. This raises the eyebrows of Ryan’s many female friends. Evie successfully navigates the social dynamics of these friends, except for Ryan’s friend Rachel, a powerful lawyer who asks too many questions about Evie’s past. Evie’s confidence in her infiltration of Ryan’s life is shaken when she and Ryan meet a woman who looks exactly like Evie and claims to be Lucca Marino, hailing from Evie’s hometown. The woman is with one of Ryan’s old friends.

As Evie waits for information from Mr. Smith about the appearance of this Lucca-imposter, she decides to pry into Ryan’s life for information. Evie discovers that Ryan runs a trucking business that acts as a front for black market brokerage. She visits the company’s premises secretly and witnesses Ryan threaten one of his employees who tried to steal from him. Evie escapes without being noticed and returns to normal life with Ryan. Not having received any information from Smith about the Lucca-imposter, Evie invites Ryan’s friend and the imposter over for dinner, getting the imposter alone and confronting her. The Lucca-imposter reveals that Smith hired her to pose as Lucca, but she doesn’t know more than this. When the imposter and Ryan’s friend drive home after dinner, they are killed in a car accident.

A few days later, the police arrive at Ryan’s house to arrest Evie, telling her that she’s a material witness in the death of a woman named Amy Holder. Holder was a mark in a previous job when Evie worked under a different alias. She is concerned that, as the police have tracked her down, her Evie Porter alias is compromised. The police show her photos placing her at the scene of Holder’s death; Evie thinks that between this and the mysterious death of the Lucca-imposter, Smith is trying to frame her. Evie calls Rachel to act as her lawyer. Evie gives Rachel a number to call and tells her to mention Hilton Head, 2017. Evie is promptly released.

An interlude narrates a job in which Evie was asked to infiltrate the campaign of rising political star Andrew Marshall. Evie enlisted the help of a hacker named Devon. Smith asked Evie to use cameras to catch Marshall in a compromising position in a Hilton Head hotel room. Evie knows this won’t be possible because Marshall is too honorable. With Devon’s help, she improvises by catching a different politician with a sex worker in the same hotel. She prevents Marshall from being damaged by the situation.

Having leveraged Marshall to get herself out of jail, Evie calls Smith to confront him. Smith tells her that he believes she’s hiding information from Holder in a deposit box in Atlanta. He says that the Lucca-imposter’s death was his doing and that she’ll meet the same fate if she doesn’t show him the contents of the box. Evie and Ryan head to Atlanta, stopping along the way. First, Evie meets up with Cameron Mitchell, a football coach whom she helped on a previous job for Smith. Evie asks him for money and he loudly refuses, and then contacts Smith the moment she leaves. With Devon’s help, Evie has hacked Mitchell’s phone and so she’s now able to see how Smith communicates with his clients. Evie then goes to meet Marshall, from whom she requests a future undetermined favor. Marshall agrees. Evie is then confronted by one of Smith’s associates, a man named George. He tells her that Smith can incriminate her in Holder’s death and that she must get to Atlanta. Evie is pleased to see George because this means that her conversation with Mitchell was recorded and sent to Smith. She wants Smith to think that she’s gaining leverage over the marks he sent her to work on.

Evie goes back to the hotel where she is staying with Ryan and overhears a conversation between Ryan and George in which Ryan appears to be giving George instructions. Spooked, Evie begins to suspect that Ryan might be Smith. She flees the hotel without him, telling only Devon where she’s going. Devon, who has been tracking down Smith’s identity with the information gleaned from Mitchell’s bugged phone, shows her that Smith is George, not Ryan.

Interludes narrate how Evie and Holder met four years ago on a previous job in which Smith tried to pit his employees against each other. Since then, they’ve been working together to try to take down Smith. Evie was sent to infiltrate the life of Amy Holder, whom Smith believed had information he could use about a powerful criminal family, the Connollys. Holder immediately identified Evie as a plant and absconded to a hotel. Evie broke into Holder’s hotel room and, working together, the two women faked Holder’s death in a fire. Unknown to them, Smith was photographing Evie through parts of this interaction. Holder did have information, proving that Smith has been double-crossing the Connolly family. Holder wasn’t able to do anything with this information without knowing Smith’s identity, so she has spent the four intervening years, assumed dead, working with Evie to reveal Smith’s identity and deliver him to the Connollys.

In the present, Evie arrives at the bank in Atlanta where she has a deposit box. She is met outside by George, who she identifies as Smith. They open the box together and Evie reveals that this was a trap and the Connolly family is waiting for him outside. Now that both she and the Connollys know who he really is, he has no way to escape.

Evie returns to life with Ryan, and introduces him to Holder and Devon. Evie and Ryan tell each other all their secrets. Evie learns that Ryan was only associated with Smith because Smith wanted to buy his company. Evie and Ryan settle down together. Evie is in possession of Smith’s means of communicating with his clients thanks to Marshall’s bugged phone. She takes over Smith’s persona, calling herself Miss Smith.