ISBN-10: 030739610X

ISBN-13: 978-0307396105

Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books

You'll either love or hate Will Lavender's Obedience. I truly appreciate a story that takes me in a wildly unexpected direction and keeps me guessing and Lavender's story certainly fills that bill. In fact, a few times, I had to put the book down because it was moving so fast, I had to stop and absorb before I could continue.

Professor Williams and his teaching style perplex students at Indiana's Winchester University. Their class project is over-the-top… find a missing 18-year-old girl, Polly. They have six weeks. If they fail, Polly dies. Of course, Polly's a fictionalized character, for the sake of the exercise, right? Williams dutifully drops a few clues to get them started and before long, our main characters, Mary, Brian, and Dennis, are lost between reality and homework! Research turns into an obsession that leads Mary away from her classes and takes her off campus, where she and her friends chase clues, unsavory characters, and would-be murderers.  

The deeper they delve, the more confused and concerned they grow -- Polly's story is too entrenched in the local psyche to be just an assignment. Could Polly be real?

Lavender's story is thought provoking but confusing and I think Lavender plays the reader just as he plays Mary and her classmates. The story will force you to ask at least a few questions of yourself: Just how far would you go to save someone you didn't know? How quick are you to comply with authority? Can you easily discern between reality and manipulated circumstances?