The Lies I Tell

Julie Clark’s The Lies I Tell is a psychological thriller novel that follows two women, Kat, a journalist who loses everything one night after working tirelessly to make herself a place in a man’s field, and Meg Williams, a con artist who seeks to pull off the ultimate job on the man who wronged her mother many years ago. Ten years before the events of the book, one of Meg’s cons crosses Kat’s path and leads to the destruction of her life, or so Kat thinks. On her quest to get revenge on Meg, Kat finds herself realizing that not all con artists are bad people.

Julie Clark is the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight, The Ones We Choose, and The Lies I Tell. She is based in Los Angeles.

This guide refers to the 2022 Sourcebooks Landmark Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The book and this guide include references to rape, sexual harassment, death of a parent, terminal illness, derogatory language about diverse groups, and substance addiction.

Plot Summary

One summer at a political fundraiser, journalist Kat runs into the woman she has been hunting for years, the con artist who ruined Kat’s life named Meg Williams. That night, Meg has her eyes on one person only, Ron Ashton, whose inner circle she manages to penetrate by befriending his friends and falsifying information about her background in real estate. Kat is determined to take Meg down while Meg is focused on exacting revenge on Ron Ashton.

Ten years earlier in Los Angeles, Meg begins the con that Kat claims ruined her life. Meg, who is working at the front desk of a gym and living out of her car, decides she needs more stability in her life, so she pursues a relationship with high school principal Cory Dempsey. She targets him for a specific reason: Mr. Dempsey was her math teacher in high school and was rumored to have had a relationship with an underage student, Kristen Gentry, a girl who was very kind to Meg in high school. Meg uses him for shelter and slowly leeches money from his bank account. Then, she ends his career when she finds pictures of him and Kristen and learns he’s talking to other minors at his school over email. This story causes a large scandal, so naturally, the LA Times, where Kat works, covers it, but Kat wants to pursue a different angle than her boss—she wants to know about this vigilante con woman that took down a bad man. When an anonymous tip comes from Meg, Kat is led to Nate, Cory’s best friend, who rapes her. This causes Kat tremendous trauma and costs her career as a journalist.

Because Kat lost everything due to that anonymous call (which she traced to Meg), Kat blames Meg for everything that went wrong in her life and sees Meg as someone who will hurt anyone during her cons. Kat has spent the last 10 years learning everything she can about Meg until finally Meg comes back to Los Angeles after a series of other cons.

Meg has returned to Los Angeles to target Ron Ashton, the real estate mogul who stole her family’s home when her mother had a terminal illness and forced them to live out of their car. She is no longer the helpless teen she was when he targeted her family. Instead, life experience has crafted her into a strong and capable woman who overcomes the worst, and now she is armed with plenty of experience conning other wealthy and powerful men. For instance, she is fresh off the case of Phillip Montgomery, whom she swindled out of his house and wealth to help his wife, Celia, whom he was trying to cheat out of her fair share of assets following their divorce, without regard for how he was hurting her or their children.

In her new role, Meg plays the part of a real estate agent. She goes so far as to get her real estate license because it would be impossible for her to pull off the con otherwise. Kat, meanwhile, is eager to get revenge on Meg and expose Meg as a con artist. While Meg weaves the threads necessary to shatter Ron’s dreams of a new house and winning an election, Kat tries to sort out her relationship with her fiancé, Scott, who has a history of gambling when worrying financial signs, like missing bank statements, start occurring. Meg and Kat play a game of cat-and-mouse as Kat attempts to con Meg by pretending to want to buy a house from her. Meg quickly realizes what Kat is up to and keeps her close by, making Kat her assistant.

By the end, Kat realizes what Meg is trying to do with Ron and supports her, because all her research and experience point to the fact that Meg is a good person trying to help other women get justice and hold unscrupulous, powerful men accountable. Kat also realizes Scott has been gambling again and kicks him out of the house. This allows Kat to move forward with the next phase of her life, which centers on her fiction writing and becoming a con artist like Meg to bring Nate to justice and stop him from hurting anyone else. Meg, likewise, is able to move forward with her life once her plan succeeds. Ron’s campaign is ruined by a generous donation to a shelter for people who are unhoused using taxpayer funds, and he also loses the house he thought he had. Meg can now let go of the past and move toward a new future in Costa Rica. She wants to live a simple life and is done with being a con artist. She also wants to see Kat succeed in her future endeavors and is rooting for her.