OBEDIENCE
Will Lavender
Shaye Areheart Books
Psychological Thriller
ISBN: 9780307396105

• Critical Praise
• Read a Review
• Read an Excerpt
• Author Interview –– February 22, 2008

When the students in Winchester University’s Logic and Reasoning 204 arrive for their first day of class, they are greeted not with a syllabus or texts, but with a startling assignment from Professor Williams: Find a hypothetical missing girl named Polly. If after being given a series of clues and details the class has not found her before the end of the term in six weeks, she will be murdered.

At first the students are as intrigued by the premise of their puzzle as they are wary of the strange and slightly creepy Professor Williams. But as they delve deeper into the mystery, they begin to wonder: Is the Polly story simply a logic exercise, designed to teach them rational thinking skills, or could it be something more sinister and dangerous?

The mystery soon takes over the lives of three students as they find disturbing connections between Polly and themselves. Characters that were supposedly fictitious begin to emerge in reality. Soon, the boundary between the classroom assignment and the real world becomes blurred --- and the students wonder if it is their own lives they are being asked to save.

OBEDIENCE © Copyright 2008 by Will Lavender. Reprinted with permission by Shaye Areheart Books. All rights reserved.

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Critical Praise

"With superb confidence, Lavender constructs a brilliant fictional web of lies, inventively warping the psychological thriller to fit the confines of a scholarly investigation."

––– Kirkus Reviews

"OBEDIENCE draws you in and never lets go ––– and what a ride!"

––– David Baldacci

"In his dream-like and labyrinthine debut, Will Lavender delivers a clever, intricate page-turner that kept me guessing late into the night. OBEDIENCE is a house of mirrors where every corner we turn is a false reflection of the truth until the shocking final scene. A gripping exploration of human nature and all its foibles told in Lavender's fresh and original voice, OBEDIENCE is not to be missed."

––– Lisa Unger

"OBEDIENCE is a very scary story set on the border where good meets evil, located in this case in that scariest of places, academia. Taut, twisty, and highly original: the pages turned themselves."

––– Peter Abrahams

"A taut and timely thriller that explores the dark side of academia, where classrooms are dangerous and paranoia abounds."

––– Karin Slaughter

"A taut, clever puzzle, so artfully crafted and tightly wound that it springs open its trap when you least expect it to."

––– Carol Goodman, author of The Sonnet Lover and The Ghost Orchid

"A devilishly inventive debut that reads like a house of mirrors. Nothing is what it seems, right up to the devastating finale."

––– Brian Freeman, author of Stripped

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