OBEDIENCE
Will Lavender
Three Rivers Press
Psychological Thriller
Hardcover: 9780307396105
Paperback: 9780307396389

• About the Book
• Read an Excerpt
• Author Interview –– February 22, 2008

OBEDIENCE, Will Lavender’s debut novel, is a puzzle. Three students at Indiana’s Winchester University are taking a philosophy class --- Logic & Reasoning 204 --- and have been given a very bizarre assignment from Professor Williams (that’s Professor L. Williams to you). Before the end of the term --- a scant six weeks --- they must locate a hypothetical young girl named Polly. If they fail to do so, then she will be murdered. Williams, slightly and indefinably but unquestionably creepy, isn’t kidding around; he will guide the students along, providing them with occasional clues that will either help or mislead.

The makeup of the class is an interesting one. Brian House is a somewhat abrasive lad, all sharp edges that conceal a deep sorrow he doesn’t share with his classmates. Mary Butler is trying to deal with the end of a love affair during her freshman year with Dennis Flaherty, a button-down, coat-and-tie frat boy who happens to be taking the class as well. Flaherty has a secret of his own --- one that involves Elizabeth Orman, the wife of the Winchester University dean, a woman with whom he is becoming slowly, surely and unhealthily obsessed. And Orman? She might have the largest, grandest secret of all.

Professor Williams’s assignment is tossed into this emotional maelstrom. As Butler, House and Flaherty uneasily start to come together to solve it, they begin to realize that the problem he has tossed their way is based on a real-world mystery involving a young girl who went missing some two decades ago. Furthermore, it seems that Polly is far from a fictional character. The more information they unearth, however, the more perplexing things become, until it appears that Williams himself may be involved in the disappearance and possible murder of an innocent --- and that history may well repeat itself.

Lavender has crafted an infuriating, brilliant puzzle at the heart of a novel that compels continuous, non-stop reading from beginning to end to discover how everything winds up. Flaherty’s infatuation with Orman is perfectly presented without falling into the trap of stereotype --- every college campus has at least one fetching professor’s wife, and a male student who would love to take advantage of her --- and Butler’s unrequited and unresolved yearning for Flaherty provides an additional unsettling element to a book brimming over with them.

In addition, there are some literary references that, while not exactly clues, will guide you in the right direction (maybe) and a few hints here and there about the “why” of what’s occurring in OBEDIENCE. And then there’s that title…

Don’t miss this intriguing and addicting psychological thriller from a talented new writer worthy of our undivided attention.

    --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.

© Copyright 1996-2010, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.

Back to top.