Obedience: A Novel [Hardcover]

Will Lavender (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 2008

“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


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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A complex conspiracy involving the writing of a book drives Lavender's compelling debut, a thriller that will strike some as a mix of John Fowles's The Magus and Stephen King's The Shining. At Indiana's Winchester University, three students—Brian House, Dennis Flaherty and Mary Butler—are taking Logic and Reasoning 204, taught by enigmatic Professor Williams. They quickly learn this is a course like no other. Their single assignment is to find a missing 18-year-old girl, Polly, in six weeks time—or else, Williams asserts, she will be murdered. Is this merely an academic exercise? As Williams produces clues, including photographs of Polly and her associates, the students begin to wonder where homework ends and actual homicide begins. Together with Brian and Dennis, Mary ventures off campus in search of Polly into a world of crumbling towns, decrepit trailers and hints at crimes old and new. A rapid-fire plot offsets thin characterization, though the conspiracy becomes so all-encompassing, so elaborate, that readers may feel a bit like Mary when baffled by her quest: This is what she felt like: led, played, not in control of anything she did. (Feb.)
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Review

"Obedience is evidence that crime fiction is hardly a played-out genre …. [G]rafts the world-turned-upside-down suspense of a Harlan Coben thriller to the hall-of-mirrors vertigo of a novel by Paul Auster …. [I]ts ultimate implications continue to spin out in a reader’s mind after the final page is turned."
—Wall Street Journal

“Authentic puzzle mysteries are an endangered species in these hectic times, so 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 is a fiendishly clever thriller, debut or no, and Lavender exhibits deft control at the wheel."
—Bookgasm.com

"Obedience is quite a twisty little number …. the taunting nature of the challenge is irresistible….”
—New York Daily News

“[T]his is one of those high-concept thrillers with a final twist that upends all expectations, filled with characters who are not what they seem.”
—Entertainment Weekly

"Obedience is a full course load of sinister fun."
—Salon.com

An inspired thriller about cognitive dissonance, conjectural misdirection and the conspicuous dichotomy between academia and the real world."
—Kirkus Reviews

“Will Lavender stuns with this compelling thriller…. The surreal but believable landscape fairly bursts from its confines, goading the reader into finishing just one more page.”
—Louisville Courier-Journal

“It’s a terrific book, part cat-and-mouse mystery and part psychological study of group behavior…. [A] wonderful book with a strong emotional punch at the end.”
—St. Petersburg Times

“Lavender’s first novel suggests he has a bright future. The novel is briskly plotted with deft narrative. Obedience builds to a swirling conclusion. It becomes a place where morality is blurred and intentions drift astray.”
—Tampa Tribune

“In his tautly strung debut novel, Obedience, literature professor Will Lavender tears a page of out Milgram’s notebooks and sets into motion a chain of events that escalates far beyond its intended intellectual exercise. . . . Mystery fans will be satisfied to hang on around the story’s hairpin turns as the list of suspects swells and narrows with the unearthing of each clue, but Lavender . . . is aiming at a broader target and posing deeper questions.”
—Bookpage

“First-time novelist Lavender has a knack for creepy characters and red herrings.”
—Library Journal

“First novelist Lavender has sprinkled his text with enough red herrings to feed the Biblical 5,000 but uses them to build page-turning suspense. . . . Lavender’s invocation of the notorious Milgram experiment conducted at Yale on obedience to authority adds an additional–and salutary–layer of psychological meaning to his elaborate plot.”
—Booklist

More Praise for Obedience:

“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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Crown (February 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030739610X
• ISBN-13: 978-0307396105
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,066,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "What you do has consequences.", February 28, 2008

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Obedience: A Novel (Hardcover)

In Will Lavender's "Obedience," the students in Professor Leonard William's Logic and Reasoning class are about to embark on a strange and unsettling journey. Instead of following syllabus and plowing through a list of readings, the students are being challenged to prevent a murder that will occur in six weeks. The potential homicide victim is an eighteen-year-old named Polly, and the teacher will provide clues that, if followed logically, will lead to the place where she is being held. Three individuals taking the course become deeply committed to saving Polly. Brian House is a tortured young man who is still in shock after his older brother's sudden death; Dennis Flaherty (nicknamed Dennis the Menace) is a handsome and charming womanizer who has a knack for talking his way out of any situation; Mary Butler is an intense junior majoring in English who becomes increasingly agitated as the deadline approaches.

Williams feeds his students information about Polly's family and friends and provides details about her actions just prior to her disappearance. He states that "the best way to learn logic is to decode a puzzle." By solving the "Polly puzzle," they "will learn to think, and induce, and carve out the blight of lazy thought." Mary, Dennis, and Brian interview various people during the course of their investigation. Their inquiries lead them to the parallel case of Deanna Ward, another girl who went missing back in the eighties. Complicating matters for Dennis is his attraction to Elizabeth Orman, the seductive wife of Dean Edward Orman, a distinguished scholar nearly twice her age. As Mary, Brian, and Dennis gradually become more immersed in their task, they begin to question their instructor's motives. Is Williams an evil man with a hidden agenda? Is he toying with them for some nefarious reason? It may very well be that this is all a macabre and sadistic game that must be played out to the bitter end before the truth finally emerges.

"Obedience" is one of those books with a terrific premise that promises more than it delivers. Readers who like brainteasers may enjoy playing amateur sleuth. As the narrative progresses, however, it becomes dreary and tedious, and when the author at last reaches his startling conclusion (one that requires a major suspension of disbelief), many readers will be quite content to part ways with this convoluted psychological thriller that examines our gullibility in the face of authority.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Could have delivered so much... came up so short, March 7, 2008

By 

Elizabeth A. White (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Obedience: A Novel (Hardcover)

Disappointing. I had read so many great reviews about this book (USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, etc) that I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to the hype. The writing is decent and the premise (which is in the product information above so I won't repeat it here) is very intriguing. However, I was unable to suspend belief to the level necessary to really "buy" this story for several reasons:

1) I just don't see 18-20 year olds actually caring as much about the fictional Polly presented in a college course as would be needed to get as sucked down the rabbit hole as they do.
2) the advancement of the plot depends on WAY too many "coincidences" / events happening at just the right time, in just the right location and, on at least one occasion, something most would consider logical behavior NOT happening.
3) as involved as the students get in the mystery, they leave several very obvious avenues of inquiry left unexplored (because, of course, doing so would derail the whole story).
4) there is no way as many people could be "in" on things as are required without someone tripping up or, conversely, no way as many people could be clueless to such elaborate events unfolding in (supposed) secrecy around them.
5) there are several events that, even after the book is wrapped up, don't make sense in context of the given explanation / conclusion.

Perhaps others will not be as "demanding" as I am about characters' behavior and the suspension of belief required, but I was disappointed that a premise that could have delivered so much came up so short.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars over the top, March 2, 2008

By 

David W. Straight (knoxville, tennessee United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Obedience: A Novel (Hardcover)

There are some books where when you finish and look back over what you've read, the pieces to the puzzle fit and make sense. There are other books where a review of the pieces in hindsight reveals gaping holes--plot elements that seemed reasonable at the time you read them, but in retrospect cannot stand the light of day. Unfortunately, Obedience falls into the latter category. Even at the time I read the book, there were too many places where I would say to myself things like "Why on earth doesn't Mary ask her friend Summer about this?", or "Why not take the obvious next step about the plagerism issue?" In retrospect, addressing these issues might have given the plot away so the author had the characters act illogically--often very illogically--at times.

At the core of the story is a mysterious professor who nobody seems to know anything about--which is certainly strange, since he's been teaching at the school for many many years and is tenured. This makes no sense at all even in a much larger school such as I'm at (27K students), but we'll let it go. He poses a puzzle about a to-be-murdered girl to the class and asks the students to solve the puzzle as he provides clues from time to time. In the book's opening paragraph it says that Professor Williams is in the faculty guidebook, but without a photo. He's indentified in group photos, but you can only see a hand or arm. The college's website gives a brief CV. When you get to the end of the book, if you return to this first paragraph, you'll see what I mean about gaping holes--and this is just one small example.

Revelations and clues send the 3 student protagonists--Brian, Mary, and Dennis, scurrying back and forth trying to figure out what's real and what isn't, and things grow steadily more sinister and more confusing, and it becomes apparent that there are a lot of mind games going on and a lot of people involved. There's a dramatic denouement which gets spoiled only if you think back on the pieces of the puzzle that led up to it--a short memory span would be useful here--stopping and thinking is a no-no!

At the end, I was reminded of Alistair MacLean's Where Eagles Dare, which has lots of drama and action to compensate for a truly idiotic plot line--the risking of many lives and material on the remote chance of unmasking a suspected traitor in England. Why not just stay in London and torture the suspect there? I thought. There's nothing quite that consequential here to be sure, but as you chug along in the book, everything gets more and more elaborate. "Is this necessary?" I kept asking. "Could we get where we're going more simply?" A quieter and simpler approach, without lots of bells, whistles, and flags, might have been more effective. In the movie Jaws, there was great drama and tension long before the shark finally came into full view--leaving unseen things under a mundane surface could help. The ending of the book supposedly wraps everything up, but it actually raises more questions--money, academic policies, etc. So the book is interesting, but not satisfying.