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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
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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
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Obedience is a fiendishly clever thriller, debut or no, and Lavender exhibits deft control at the wheel.
— Bookgasm.com
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Obedience is quite a twisty little number …. the taunting nature of the challenge is irresistible….
— New York Daily News
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[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
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"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.
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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
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“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
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“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
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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
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First-time novelist Lavender has a knack for creepy characters and red herrings.
— Library Journal
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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
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Obedience draws you in and never lets go — and what a ride!
— David Baldacci
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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
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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
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A taut and timely thriller that explores the dark side of academia, where classrooms are dangerous and paranoia abounds.
— Karin Slaughter
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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
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"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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