The first lie is important 9
Acknowledgments 435

When lying, you should try to be as close to the truth as possible.
Unnecessary lies are also prohibited.
And as always, the first lie is important.

The novel begins with the protagonist, Abby Porter, and her boyfriend, Ryan, inviting their friends over for a fancy dinner.
Life seems pretty happy and fulfilling, with Ryan inviting his childhood friends over for a dinner of expensive wine and perfectly cooked steaks in a fancy two-story house owned by his affectionate boyfriend, Ryan, and Ryan telling her he wants to live with him now.
Although Ryan's friends are suspicious that Abby might be after his money and ask him persistent questions to dig up his past, he can tolerate that.


Then one day, an unexpected bomb is dropped on Evie's pretty perfect daily life.
At an event I attended with Ryan, I met Ryan's old friend James and James' girlfriend Luca Marino.
Evie panics shortly after meeting Luca Marino, a man from Eden, North Carolina whose mother died of cancer.
Because Abby herself is from Eden, North Carolina, and her mother is Luca Marino, who passed away from cancer.

In fact, there was no such person as Abby Porter in the first place.
The name is simply a new identity given to him to approach his target, Ryan.
Eight years ago, the protagonist, who had been living off theft, was caught by the police, and at that time, an unknown person named Mr. Smith rescued her, which started this business.
When you receive a new mission, you are first told the name of the city and target you will be dispatched to.
Once you have acquired information about your target, you are given an identity to use for the task.
Name, background, and any other documents that will increase the credibility of that identity.
Sometimes it takes days, sometimes months, to complete a task, and orders come through the mailbox, and whatever they are, they are completed.


The mission was to approach the target, Ryan, become his lover, and extract information related to his business.
Although she had been struggling internally with feelings for Ryan, she had been faithfully following Mr. Smith's instructions on the outside, but the fact that someone had appeared impersonating her true identity meant that something was very wrong.
Evie, gripped by a foreboding, keeps an eye on the man claiming to be Luca Marino, while she begins to put her own secretly prepared project into action against Mr. Smith.

“A fast-paced novel with everything you expect from a thriller.” _Reese Witherspoon

The novel alternates between the present, where the protagonist is Abby Porter and acts as Ryan's lover, and the past, where she performs various missions as a different person with a different name and occupation, starting eight years ago when she first met Mr. Smith.
From the relatively small task of getting a job as a babysitter for a family and swapping flash drives in a safe to the more dangerous task of infiltrating a high-security mansion and stealing art, each operation the protagonist carries out showcases various genre elements such as disguising one's identity, getting an undercover job, and hacking into security facilities, delivering the tension and fun that spy movies can provide.
Moreover, the battle of wits between the protagonist and the boss, which forms the main storyline of the present, continues with twists and turns, driving the novel nonstop until the very end.
A smart and capable protagonist who is by no means good but somehow likable, a mysterious boss whose identity keeps you wondering until the very end, a story that is frighteningly captivating and fast-paced, and an incredibly neat and satisfying ending—this work truly has everything we could hope for when reading genre fiction.