August 08, 2008

BOOKS: Obedience, Will Lavender (2008)

Winchester University, the first day of a new term, and the students in Professor Williams' Logic and Reasoning class are delighted to learn that they aren't going to be doing the boring textbook survey of Greek philosophers. Instead, Williams informs them that a young woman, Polly, has been kidnapped; he'll give them all the information they need to identify the culprit and find Polly before the class ends in six weeks. If they fail, Williams tells them, Polly will be murdered.

We focus on three of Williams' students. Dennis is the charming ladies' man, about to embark on a particularly reckless relationship; Mary is his ex, still not quite sure where their relationship went wrong; Brian is depressed, maybe even suicidal, after the recent death of his brother. As they attempt to solve the clues that Williams gives them, each is puzzled to find elements of the Polly story creeping into their real lives. When they discover that a local girl disappeared 20 years ago, and that her case (still unsolved) has its own creepy parallels to the Polly story, they begin to wonder what Williams is really up to.

Up until about the mid-way point, Lavender does a fine job of building suspense. But his plot twists gradually become more farfetched and harder to take seriously; by the climax, he's actually thrown the Polly story out the window completely, a slap in the face to the readers who have been playing along, trying to solve the mystery themselves. His characters' motives as explained in the final chapters are never convincing, and characters lose credibility by doing the stupidest thing possible on too many occasions.

The initial premise is compelling, and if Lavender had the faith to stick with it, this could have been a solid thriller. But the second half of the book takes so many bizarre leaps and twists that the initial mystery is barely recognizable by the time it's over. Not recommended, though it will be interesting to see what Lavender does next.

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