First Lie Wins is part of the crime thriller genre. Crime thrillers have propulsive action plots that use literary devices such as unreliable narrators, red herrings, and cat-and-mouse power reversals to create mystery and suspense. The narrative arc relies on the resolution of the mysteries that drive the plot. This resolution often returns the protagonist to social status quo that existed before the narrative-driving crimes were committed. First Lie Wins engages some of these tropes. Elston uses the technique of cutting between different times in Evie’s life to create suspense and tension. While Evie is not an unreliable narrator, her first-person narration doesn’t reveal everything she knows at any given time. Elston uses this technique to characterize Evie’s evasiveness and to ensure that the story’s plot twists are as surprising as possible.

Crime thrillers typically feature a power struggle between the protagonist and a villain. In many crime thrillers, such as detective stories, the protagonist’s and antagonist’s relationship is defined by their moral relationship to the law. First Lie Wins, as a con artist thriller, belongs to a sub-genre that complicates—and often reverses––this morally oppositional relationship. As in this novel, the protagonist themselves is a criminal anti-hero.