Pg. 69: Will Lavender's "Obedience"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Will Lavender's Obedience.

About the book, from the author's website:

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.

Among the praise for Obedience:

“[Lavender] gets his hooks in deep with this arresting debut… An inspired thriller about cognitive dissonance, conjectural misdirection and the conspicuous dichotomy between academia and the real world.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“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 and Immoral

“It’s a genuine, if slightly perverse, kick to follow every byzantine clue in this bizarre game. If you solve this one without peeking at the last chapter, it’s an automatic A.”
—New York Times Book Review

“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... A gripping exploration of human nature and all its foibles told in Lavender's fresh and original voice...”
—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

“[E]vidence that crime fiction is hardly a played-out genre…A mystery as ambitious as one could imagine.”
—Wall Street Journal

Read an excerpt from Obedience, and learn more about the author and his work at Will Lavender's website.

The Page 69 Test: Obedience.

--Marshal Zeringue