Dominance: A NovelWill Lavender
Simon & Schuster, July 2011
ISBN: 978-1451617290
“[A] taut second standalone. . . . Full-bodied characters, an effective gothic atmosphere, and a deliciously creepy, unpredictable finale.” --Publishers Weekly
THE PROCEDURE HAS BEGUN...
In 1994, a controversial class "Unraveling a Literary Mystery" is being taught at Jasper College, to nine undergraduate Honor students who were specifically chosen and invited to take the class. The class is being taught by the infamous Professor Aldiss, a renowned Fallows scholar, who has been convicted of murdering two students at Dumant University.
Professor Aldiss is considered the world's foremost expert on the novels of Paul Fallows, a reclusive writer whose books have generated a great deal of interest. Currently incarcerated, Aldiss teaches the students via satellite, who assemble in the basement of the school, to avoid intrusion and distraction by other students, and protestors. The nine students are given the task of discovering the identity of reclusive, renowned author Paul Fallows.
In 1982, Aldiss was convicted of the murders of two female grad students; the women were killed with axe blows and their bodies decorated with the novels of notoriously reclusive author Paul Fallows. Aldiss wants the students of his night class to solve the Fallows riddle once and for all. The author’s two published novels, The Coil and The Golden Silence, are considered maps to finding Fallows’s true identity. The only way in is to master them through a game called The Procedure.
Fifteen years later, Dr. Alex Shipley, one of the night students goes to meet Dr. Aldiss at his home. She’s come to speak with him about a murder – the victim being another student of the night class, Michael. He was found in a scene arranged much like the Dumant University murders, surrounded by books and open books covering their eyes.
Now a Harvard professor, Alex Shipley, the woman who earlier solved Fallows identity as well as uncovering evidence that exonerated Aldiss of the earlier murders, wonders if somehow she made a mistake. The body count is rising, each of the nine being targeted one by one, and Alex is desperate to find the killer. Has The Procedure begun, again? Alternating between 1994 and the present, Lavender allows the two stories to unfold in tandem.
Wil Lavender's Dominance is smart, intense and deeply moody. A riveting novel with the all the elements that makes a mystery/thriller novel amazing. This thrilling murder mystery is driven by Lavender's slow and purposeful development of characters and clues and revelations around key plot points. This is a book readers will want to read in one sitting; readers won’t be able to put it down as they race towards the shocking conclusion, one with a twist that will leave them reeling. Will Lavender is a name that everyone will want on their shelves.
WILL LAVENDER is the author of the novel Obedience, which was translated into fourteen languages and was a New York Times and international bestseller. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky and is at work on his third novel, The Descartes Circle.
ISBN: 978-1451617290; ISBN10: 1451617291; Imprint: Simon & Schuster; On Sale: 7/5/2011; Format: Hardcover; Pages: 368; $25.00
