Genuine Fraud

The story opens in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where eighteen-year-old Jule West Williams is living alone at the Playa Grande Resort. In the hotel gym, she meets a woman named Noa, who shares a sympathetic story about her ailing father to build rapport. Jule introduces herself as “Imogen.” Later, the poolside bartender, Donovan, warns Jule that a woman has been asking about an American girl matching her description. Jule realizes Noa is a detective who has seen through her disguise. She formulates an escape plan, paying Donovan to drive her away from the resort.

In the car, Donovan attempts to extort more money from Jule. A trained fighter, Jule incapacitates him, retrieves her money, and flees with his phone and car keys. She alters her appearance with a wig in a bar restroom, narrowly avoiding Donovan, who comes looking for her. She checks into a cheap hotel, the Cabo Inn, where she feels profoundly alone and thinks of her friend Imogen, as well as a young man named Paolo. To mislead her pursuer, Jule books a flight to Los Angeles on her credit card, intending to actually buy a car with cash and drive to Cancún. The next morning, however, she opens her door to find Noa waiting in the hallway.

The narrative shifts back seven weeks to London, where Jule is living in a youth hostel. She reads Our Mutual Friend, a novel by Charles Dickens given to her by her best friend, Imogen Sokoloff. A series of flashbacks to the previous summer on Martha’s Vineyard reveals Imogen as a wealthy, adopted orphan who dropped out of Vassar College. Imogen, who is obsessed with Victorian literature, confided in Jule about her birth mother’s drug overdose and showed her cigarette burns on her arm from a traumatic early childhood. Back in London, Jule reflects on the recent news of Imogen’s suicide by drowning in the Thames.

Imogen’s mother, Patti Sokoloff, calls Jule. Patti is in London and reveals that her husband, Gil, has just died of heart failure, possibly having lost the will to live after Imogen’s death. Jule and Patti meet for lunch, where Patti delivers shocking news: Imogen left Jule her entire multimillion-dollar inheritance in a will, notarized in San Francisco a few months prior, so that Jule could return to college. After receiving the money, Jule erases her digital footprint by throwing her laptop and phone into the Thames. She buys wigs and makeup, then travels by bus to Las Vegas. There, she hones her skills by stealing wallets and passports, accumulating a set of false identities before buying a car with cash and driving to Mexico.

Moving further back in time to late February in London, Imogen’s ex-boyfriend, Forrest Smith-Martin, is staying with Jule in Imogen’s flat. He is grieving Imogen’s death but is also deeply suspicious of Jule. One night, they attend a play where Jule unexpectedly encounters a young man named Paolo Vallarta-Bellstone. Paolo believes Jule is Imogen and is openly infatuated with her. Panicked that Forrest will discover her impersonation, Jule flees the theater, lying to Forrest that Paolo is a stalker. The encounter heightens Forrest’s suspicions that something is amiss with Imogen’s death. The next morning, Forrest is gone. Fearing he will expose her, Jule moves out of the flat and into the youth hostel.

Eight days earlier, Jule had called Forrest from the flat and read him a suicide note she claimed to have found in Imogen’s bread box. Forrest came to the apartment, and they reported Imogen’s disappearance to the police. The police accept the note as genuine and treat the case as a suicide.

Six weeks before that, at the end of December, Jule arrives in London for the first time. Using a key Imogen gave her, she moves into Imogen’s empty flat and begins living as her. She runs into Paolo again at Madame Tussauds, where he once more mistakes her for Imogen. They go on a date, during which he tells her that Brooke Lannon, a mutual friend of Imogen’s from Vassar, recently died in a hiking accident in California. Overwhelmed by her web of lies, Jule abruptly ends her budding romance with Paolo. Weeks later, Forrest arrives unexpectedly at the flat, searching for Imogen.

The story jumps back to mid-December in San Francisco. Two days before flying to London, Jule is living in a rented apartment. Brooke Lannon, who is in town visiting friends, comes to the apartment at Jule’s request. The previous day, Brooke had visited and the landlady, Maddie Chung, had accidentally addressed Jule as “Imogen.” A suspicious Brooke had texted Imogen’s phone, which Jule possessed. Jule texted back as Imogen, trying to quell Brooke’s concerns. Now, Jule takes Brooke for a drive and a hike. Brooke confronts Jule about her parasitic relationship with Imogen and her apparent mental instability. On a walkway over a ravine, Jule bludgeons Brooke with a heavy statue and throws her body over the railing. She meticulously cleans the crime scene, disposes of the evidence, and abandons Brooke’s car before taking a bus to Portland, Oregon, where she boards a flight to London using a ticket bought in Imogen’s name.

Twelve weeks before Brooke’s murder, Jule arrives in San Francisco from Puerto Rico and checks into a hotel using Imogen’s ID and credit card. She then rents a furnished apartment from Maddie Chung, introducing herself as Imogen. Using Imogen’s email account, Jule sends messages to Imogen’s parents and Forrest, creating a narrative that Imogen has broken up with Forrest and is traveling the world.

A week earlier, Jule is alone on the island of Culebra, Puerto Rico. She gets drunk and tells a stranger a story about how, at sixteen, she brutally assaulted a boy who had victimized another girl. Sobering up, she goes through Imogen’s belongings, discovers her eight-million-dollar fortune, and contacts Imogen’s family lawyer. Posing as Imogen, she drafts a will leaving the entire estate to Julietta West Williams.

The narrative moves back another week to show Jule and Imogen arriving in Culebra together. After a few days, they have a major argument when Imogen announces she misses Forrest and plans to return to him. They rent a small boat, and in the middle of the ocean, their fight escalates. Imogen confronts Jule, calling her an “imitation” and revealing she only invited her on the trip to ensure her silence about a secret affair she was having. Enraged by the rejection, Jule strikes Imogen repeatedly with an oar, killing her. She tows the body far out into the open ocean and lets it sink. When she returns to the hotel, a desk clerk mistakes her for “Miss Sokoloff,” sparking the idea for her identity theft.

The timeline shifts to Martha’s Vineyard, six days before Imogen’s murder. The house cleaner, Scott Cartwright, is reported to have died by suicide. A distraught Imogen confesses to Jule that she had been having an affair with Scott. He was in debt from illegal dogfighting, and she had coldly refused his plea for money shortly before his death. After a fight with Forrest about the situation, Imogen suggests she and Jule escape to Culebra for “girl time.”

Ten weeks earlier, Jule had first arrived on Martha’s Vineyard. She approaches Imogen on a beach, pretending to be a former schoolmate from the Greenbriar School. Imogen, charmed, invites Jule to stay at her summer rental house. Jule integrates herself into Imogen’s life, mimicking her style and mannerisms. After Imogen catches Jule trying on her clothes, Jule confesses she is broke. A sympathetic Imogen pays for her to get a new haircut and gives her a jade viper ring.

A week before that, Jule is in New York City. Having fled her past in Alabama and spent six months working in Florida, she is broke and living with a roommate, Lita, in New York City. When Lita falls ill, Jule takes her catering job at a Greenbriar School fundraiser. There, she meets Patti Sokoloff, who recognizes her as a former classmate of Imogen’s. Jule plays along, inventing a close friendship and lying about attending Stanford. Worried about Imogen, who has dropped out of college and is incommunicado on the Vineyard, Patti and Gil hire Jule to find her, giving her several thousand dollars for expenses. This opportunity, born from her roommate’s illness, sets the entire plot in motion.

The story returns to the opening scene in the Cabo Inn. Noa confronts Jule, but addresses her as “Imogen Sokoloff” and questions her about the disappearance of Julietta West Williams. Noa reveals the police theory: prompted by Forrest’s unwavering suspicion, they believe Imogen faked her own death, stole Jule’s identity and money, and then had Jule killed. Jule violently attacks Noa, steals her gun, and escapes on a local bus. She throws away the jade viper ring, shedding the last of her connection to Imogen. Armed, in possession of multiple identities, and ready to become someone new, Jule views herself as the hero of her own action movie.