1. About Shari Lapena
Shari Lapena is a Canadian author best known for psychological thrillers and domestic suspense novels. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as both a lawyer and an English teacher. Her career reached an international audience with The Couple Next Door, a hugely successful thriller that has sold approximately four million copies worldwide.
Following that breakthrough, Shari Lapena developed an impressive catalog of suspense novels, including A Stranger in the House, An Unwanted Guest, Someone We Know, The End of Her, Not a Happy Family, Everyone Here Is Lying, What Have You Done?, and She Didn’t See It Coming. Her thrillers have appeared on major bestseller lists, including those of The New York Times, The Sunday Times, and The Globe and Mail, while rights to her work have been sold in approximately 40 territories.
One of the defining characteristics of Lapena’s writing is not elaborate prose but her control of pacing. She frequently places apparently ordinary people into extraordinary situations, then gradually strips away the respectable surface of marriages, families, neighborhoods, and affluent lifestyles to reveal secrets, selfish desires, lies, and morally compromised decisions underneath.
Getting Away with Murder continues this approach while changing the traditional mystery structure. Readers do not spend most of the novel trying to identify a killer. Instead, the attraction comes from watching a criminal plan develop, unfold, and produce consequences that its creators may no longer be able to control.
2. About Narrator January LaVoy
January LaVoy is one of the most experienced and acclaimed narrators working in the American Audiobook industry. An actor, director, and voice artist, she has performed more than 500 Audiobooks. Her achievements include multiple Audie Awards, numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards, recognition as an AudioFile Golden Voice, and being named Audiobook Narrator of the Year by Publishers Weekly. In 2026, she was also inducted into Audible’s Narrator Hall of Fame.
One of January LaVoy’s greatest strengths is her ability to distinguish characters without turning narration into an exaggerated display of different voices. She has excellent control over pacing and emotional intensity, bringing feelings to the surface while maintaining the restraint that psychological thrillers often require. When a scene moves from conversation to internal thought, or from confidence to anxiety, the transition in her delivery tends to feel natural.
Those qualities are particularly valuable in the Getting Away with Murder Audiobook. Jill and Ted need more than simply two recognizable voices. Listeners need to hear the gradual distortion in the way these characters rationalize their increasingly disturbing choices. LaVoy gives them distinctive personalities while communicating calculation, anxiety, entitlement, desperation, and moments of catastrophically poor judgment.
This is also not LaVoy’s first performance of a Shari Lapena novel. She previously narrated She Didn’t See It Coming, another collaboration that received positive attention for its audio performance.
3. About Getting Away with Murder
Getting Away with Murder is Shari Lapena’s tenth thriller. The story centers on Jill and Ted Westcott, a married couple living in an enviable New York City brownstone. They have invested enormous amounts of money, effort, and identity into their home. It is no longer merely somewhere to live; it represents their social position, taste, security, and the lifestyle they believe they deserve.
The problem begins when Ted’s inheritance is nearly gone and a disastrous investment places their finances in serious trouble. Selling the house or accepting a significantly less luxurious lifestyle is something Jill and Ted do not want to contemplate.
Instead, they begin thinking about a horrifying alternative: if Ted’s extremely wealthy brother, Greg, were to die, Ted could potentially inherit millions.
From that point, Getting Away with Murder turns the traditional whodunit structure upside down. The central mystery is not primarily about identifying who committed the crime. Instead, the questions become whether Jill and Ted can execute their plan, whether they will make a mistake, who might discover the truth, and perhaps most importantly, whether they can continue trusting each other as the pressure increases.
The novel explores greed, entitlement, money, social status, marriage, trust, and the moral consequences of selfish decisions. Running alongside the suspense is a strong current of dark humor because Jill and Ted possess an extraordinary ability to rationalize thoughts and actions that become increasingly absurd.
At the time this article was prepared, Getting Away with Murder had an average Goodreads rating of approximately 3.57 out of 5 based on more than 25,000 ratings. That figure will naturally continue to change as more readers review the book. Audiobooks.com has also described the novel as an “Instant New York Times Bestseller.”
It is important not to confuse the commercial performance of this novel with the approximately four million copies frequently mentioned in discussions of Shari Lapena’s career. That sales figure belongs to The Couple Next Door, not Getting Away with Murder. No reliable official unit-sales figure for Getting Away with Murder itself was available at the time of writing.
4. Getting Away with Murder Book Review
The smartest decision Shari Lapena makes in Getting Away with Murder is refusing to hide something that many thrillers spend hundreds of pages concealing. From the premise, readers understand what Jill and Ted are considering. For that reason, a Getting Away with Murder Review should not approach the book as a conventional whodunit. This is closer to a story about consequences: once someone crosses the first moral boundary, what else must they do to protect the next lie?
That approach allows the plot to move quickly. Short chapters and frequent changes in circumstances create the impression that Jill and Ted are rarely as much in control as they think they are. A decision that appears to solve one problem creates another. A person who initially seems harmless can suddenly become a threat. This chain-reaction structure makes the Book extremely easy to keep reading.
The characters are also fascinating, although this is one of the novel’s more divisive qualities. Jill and Ted are not designed to be lovable protagonists. They are selfish, status-conscious, and remarkably capable of transforming morally indefensible behavior into something that sounds reasonable inside their own minds. The fact that readers may occasionally find themselves wondering whether they will succeed creates a deliberately uncomfortable question: why are we so invested in the fate of people behaving this badly?
Freida McFadden, author of The Housemaid, described the novel as “deviously delicious” and praised its ability to keep her turning pages from its tense beginning through its shocking conclusion. Claire Douglas called it a “masterclass of a thriller,” while Liz Nugent highlighted the appeal of its morally questionable characters.
Another major strength is the dark humor. There is something simultaneously frightening and absurd about two people treating murder as though it were a possible solution to a financial problem. Lapena effectively exploits the gap between the seriousness of what her characters are considering and the extraordinary ways they rationalize it.
A balanced Review of Getting Away with Murder, however, should also acknowledge the criticisms raised by readers. Lapena’s emphasis on speed means that some characters may not receive the psychological depth expected by readers who prefer slower, more introspective psychological thrillers. Some community reviews have also criticized repetitive thoughts or dialogue, while others felt that the final twists did not deliver quite the level of shock they anticipated. Readers familiar with many of Lapena’s previous Books may also recognize some of the techniques she uses to redirect attention.
Nevertheless, Getting Away with Murder works best when treated as a fast thriller rather than a novel meant to be analyzed sentence by sentence. Its appeal comes from accepting the moral game Lapena creates: readers know they are watching people make terrible choices, yet they still want to discover whether those choices will ultimately destroy them.
Personal Thoughts
What makes Getting Away with Murder worth reading, in my view, is not its ability to make us guess who committed a crime. Instead, the novel puts readers in a more uncomfortable position: we know the central characters are doing something wrong, yet we remain curious about whether they can succeed. Shari Lapena transforms money, a beautiful home, and the fear of losing social status into the fuel for an increasingly extreme sequence of decisions. If you enjoy fast thrillers filled with secrets, deeply flawed characters, moral ambiguity, and sustained tension, this is exactly the kind of Book that can make “just one more chapter” turn into several.
5. Getting Away with Murder Audiobook Review
The Getting Away with Murder Audiobook was released by Penguin Audio on July 28, 2026, and runs for approximately 9 hours and 36 minutes. January LaVoy provides the primary performance, while Shari Lapena is also credited in the audio edition.
If the printed Book relies heavily on the speed of its short chapters, the Audiobook gains another advantage: January LaVoy can turn changes in Jill and Ted’s psychological states into something listeners can actually hear.
Kirkus Reviews specifically praised LaVoy’s ability to create “distinctive vocal personalities” for the couple. Rather than simply assigning them different voices, she emphasizes their individual personalities and conveys the increasingly distorted logic through which Jill and Ted interpret their own behavior. Kirkus ultimately gave the Audiobook its “GET IT” verdict and characterized the experience as both a darkly humorous examination of entitlement and an effective thriller.
The strongest aspect of LaVoy’s performance is the way she controls escalating tension. When characters believe they are still carefully calculating their next move, the narration maintains a sense of control. As mistakes accumulate, anxiety begins to emerge. This progression complements the novel’s domino-like structure, in which each decision produces consequences larger than the characters expected.
LaVoy’s ability to distinguish characters is particularly useful because the story contains multiple perspectives and several people who could affect Jill and Ted’s plans. Instead of forcing listeners to constantly determine who is speaking, she creates enough differentiation through rhythm, attitude, emotional texture, and energy to make conversations easy to follow.
January LaVoy also brings substantial experience to this genre. As an AudioFile Golden Voice, multiple Audie Award winner, and member of Audible’s Narrator Hall of Fame, she has the technical and dramatic background required for character-driven suspense. In Getting Away with Murder, those skills rarely become excessive. Instead, they help emphasize the story’s dark humor and psychological tension.
The weaknesses of the Audiobook largely come from the structure of the novel itself. Listeners who strongly prefer full-cast productions may feel that a story with numerous characters and perspectives could benefit from multiple narrators. Repetitive thoughts that may pass quickly on the page can also become more noticeable when heard aloud. Neither issue, however, substantially undermines LaVoy’s performance.
Kirkus does not use a conventional numerical 1-to-5 rating for this Audiobook, so its review should not be converted into a numerical score that the publication never awarded. Instead, its “GET IT” verdict provides a clearer indication of the critic’s positive assessment. A Goodreads edition page for the Audiobook had also shown an average of approximately 3.46 out of 5 from 195 ratings when edition-specific data was collected. That sample is much smaller than the overall number of ratings for the Book and may change considerably over time.
Personal Thoughts on the Audiobook
If choosing between reading and listening to Getting Away with Murder, I think the Audiobook has a meaningful advantage because much of the novel’s dark humor depends on how Jill and Ted speak and how convincingly they persuade themselves that irrational decisions are somehow reasonable. January LaVoy makes that contrast more apparent through pacing, tone, and vocal characterization without requiring additional explanation. At roughly 9 hours and 36 minutes, the Audiobook is also compact enough for a fast-paced thriller. For listeners who enjoy Audiobooks while driving, walking, commuting, or doing household tasks, it is easy to become invested in discovering whether Jill and Ted’s plan will ultimately succeed or collapse around them.
6. Who Should Read Getting Away with Murder?
Getting Away with Murder is first and foremost suited to readers who enjoy psychological thrillers, domestic suspense, and stories about seemingly successful marriages or families hiding disturbing secrets. Anyone who enjoyed The Couple Next Door, Everyone Here Is Lying, or Shari Lapena’s other fast-paced thrillers will recognize many of her signature techniques here.
The Book should also appeal to readers who enjoy morally gray or outright unlikable characters. If you do not require a conventionally heroic protagonist and instead enjoy watching deeply flawed people dig themselves further into problems of their own making, Jill and Ted provide plenty to examine.
Readers who enjoy cat-and-mouse thrillers but want a change from the standard “Who is the killer?” structure may also appreciate the novel. Getting Away with Murder substitutes questions such as “Can they get away with it?” and “How long can they continue trusting each other?” for the conventional hunt for a murderer’s identity.
For Audiobook listeners, January LaVoy is another compelling element. Her ability to differentiate characters, manage pacing, and communicate psychological tension makes the audio format particularly well suited to this story.
On the other hand, readers looking for slow literary fiction, extremely deep psychological character studies, or an intricate mystery primarily constructed around clues that allow the audience to solve the crime themselves may find Getting Away with Murder less aligned with their expectations. Its strengths are suspense, speed, dark humor, and the consequences of terrible decisions.
7. Conclusion
Getting Away with Murder demonstrates that Shari Lapena can take ordinary concerns — money, a home, social status, and the fear of losing a comfortable lifestyle — and push them toward a frightening extreme. Jill and Ted begin with a financial problem but gradually enter a game in which trust, marriage, freedom, and even human lives can become part of the price.
The novel’s appeal does not depend on concealing the identity of the people responsible for the crime. Instead, the suspense comes from watching people attempt to live with what they have chosen to do. Fast pacing, short chapters, dark humor, and deeply flawed characters make Getting Away with Murder the kind of thriller that encourages readers to keep turning pages.
The Getting Away with Murder Audiobook adds another dimension through January LaVoy’s performance. Her ability to move between calculation, anxiety, entitlement, and panic makes the psychological consequences of the characters’ choices particularly effective in audio form.
If you are looking for a thriller that does not begin by asking “Who did it?” but instead confronts you with the more disturbing question, “We know what they did — but can they actually get away with it?”, Getting Away with Murder deserves a place on your reading or listening list.
8. Where to Listen to the Audiobook
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