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Dominance
THE PROCEDURE HAS BEGUN . . .
Fifteen years earlier. Jasper College is buzzing with the news that famed literature professor Richard Aldiss will be teaching a special night class called Unraveling a Literary Mystery—from a video feed in his prison cell. 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. Even the most obsessive Fallows scholars have never seen him. He is like a ghost. Aldiss entreats 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. And the only way in is to master them through a game called the Procedure. You may not know when the game has begun, but when you receive an invitation to play, it is an invitation to join the elite ranks of Fallows scholars. Failure, in these circles, is a fate worse than death. Soon, members of the night class will be invited to play along . . .
Present day. Harvard professor Alex Shipley made her name as a member of Aldiss’s night class. She not only exposed the truth of Paul Fallows’s identity, but in the process uncovered information that acquitted Aldiss of the heinous 1982 crimes. But when one of her fellow night class alums is murdered— the body chopped up with an axe and surrounded by Fallows novels—can she use what she knows about Fallows and the Procedure to stop a killer before each of her former classmates is picked off, one by one?
Fifteen years earlier. Jasper College is buzzing with the news that famed literature professor Richard Aldiss will be teaching a special night class called Unraveling a Literary Mystery—from a video feed in his prison cell. 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. Even the most obsessive Fallows scholars have never seen him. He is like a ghost. Aldiss entreats 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. And the only way in is to master them through a game called the Procedure. You may not know when the game has begun, but when you receive an invitation to play, it is an invitation to join the elite ranks of Fallows scholars. Failure, in these circles, is a fate worse than death. Soon, members of the night class will be invited to play along . . .
Present day. Harvard professor Alex Shipley made her name as a member of Aldiss’s night class. She not only exposed the truth of Paul Fallows’s identity, but in the process uncovered information that acquitted Aldiss of the heinous 1982 crimes. But when one of her fellow night class alums is murdered— the body chopped up with an axe and surrounded by Fallows novels—can she use what she knows about Fallows and the Procedure to stop a killer before each of her former classmates is picked off, one by one?
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
18 people are currently reading
2551 people want to read
About the author
Will Lavender
5 books118 followersWill Lavender is the author of the novel OBEDIENCE, which was translated into fourteen languages and was a New York Times bestseller in 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 299 reviews
October 5, 2020
Well that was unpleasant on virtually every front.
Honestly I'm not quiet sure where to start with this. For at least the first three chapters I was convinced I was reading a book from the middle of a series or like the second in a trilogy because I was clearly supposed to know not only what was going on in this very complex and involved plot but who all the characters were and how their circuitous and strange antics connected them all to each other. Though I eventually worked out that this was indeed a stand alone the general state of total confusion never abated. Instead it was joined by frustration at a bizarre and utterly unbelievable plot, detestation for a total rip off of both Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter, boredom and eye rolling for some epically pretentious writing, and general dissatisfaction with an ending that made absolutely no sense.
Honestly I'm not quiet sure where to start with this. For at least the first three chapters I was convinced I was reading a book from the middle of a series or like the second in a trilogy because I was clearly supposed to know not only what was going on in this very complex and involved plot but who all the characters were and how their circuitous and strange antics connected them all to each other. Though I eventually worked out that this was indeed a stand alone the general state of total confusion never abated. Instead it was joined by frustration at a bizarre and utterly unbelievable plot, detestation for a total rip off of both Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter, boredom and eye rolling for some epically pretentious writing, and general dissatisfaction with an ending that made absolutely no sense.
November 6, 2019
Това ако е като Агата Кристи, аз съм Том Круз. По-скоро недоспала Агата Кристи на амфети, LSD и гъби. Толкова маниернечене в писането не бях виждал от последния път, когато посегнах към книга на български „автор“, издадена от Сиела. Жалкото е, че Уил Лавендър няма Барман, когото да обвини, че го е излъгал как може да пише. По едно време, признавам си, почнах да прелиствам напред, четейки само основните части, за да разбера какво, по дяволите, ще се случи накрая. Спойлер: кашата не се оправи.
November 28, 2018
This review first appeared on my blog: http://www.knittingandsundries.com/20...
In 1994, nine Honors Literature students were chosen to attend the class "Unraveling a Literary Mystery" at Jasper College. The class was to be distance-taught by Dr. Richard Aldiss from his home at the Rock Mountain Correctional Facility, where he is serving time for the 1982 murders of two female Dumant University graduate students. There was no pre-published syllabus, and no one, outside of Aldiss himself, knows what the class will entail.
Paul Fallows is a reclusive novelist. No one knows his identity, and his books have spawned an intellectual game called "The Procedure", where the players must reenact scenes from Fallows' novels perfectly. The Procedure can happen anywhere, at any time, without any warning.
The class assignment: Find Fallow's identity to find the REAL killer.
Alex Shipley, a former student in the class, one who was instrumental in freeing Aldiss from prison, is now a well-known Harvard professor, involved in a ho-hum relationship. Another former student, Dr. Michael Tanner, who became the Jasper College resident modernist, is found dead in an apparent copycat of the Dumant murders. Alex is called in by the interim dean at Jasper, Dr. Anthony Rice, who asks her to talk to Aldiss. Is she to talk to him simply to get his take? Or is he the killer? If he IS the killer, was he actually really innocent of the previous murders? Did she help free a killer to kill again?
As the 7 remaining students (another former student apparently killed himself a few years ago - or did he?) gather for Michael's memorial service, Alex finds herself suspicious of all of them. Could one of them be the person who murdered Michael?
Dominance fluctuates between past and present, with many mysterious references to The Procedure long before this reader could figure out what The Procedure actually was - this is not a bad thing, as it was a sort of quest to figure it out. Aldiss - what an interesting character to read - he reads like Hannibal Lector (only without the "ummm ... brain is tasty" part). He is very intelligent, and very creepy. The book itself is rather a puzzle or even a maze - with many doors to open and corners to turn while reading. It will keep you on your toes, and both past and present are equally interesting.
From what I've read, Mr. Lavender calls his novels "puzzle thrillers" - not quite thrillers OR mysteries, but a blend of both. I would say that this description is very appropriate. I was totally drawn in to this story (although frustrated a bit at not knowing for a while what The Procedure was), flipping pages almost as fast as I could read, wanting to know what happened next or who the killer was in each case. Were they the same person? THEN, towards the end, it started reading and feeling almost like Friday the 13th or Scream (the original ones where the tension is so high and you have no idea what's going to happen next, but without the blood and gore) - the bad guy/girl keeps popping up - but is it the same villain or different ones or is is more than one working together? - just a nail-biting type of read.
This title was my "Fave of the Week" when I read it. If you like thrillers, mysteries, intellectual mysteries ... if you like a book that makes you feel as though you're solving a puzzle - this is the one for you.
QUOTES (from an ARC; may be different in final copy):
You have to believe that I had nothing to do with what is happening now in that house. And also know this -
Alex's eyes ran over the rest of the notes, and when she saw what Aldiss had written next, her breach caught in her throat.
-the Procedure has begun. Everything they say, everything you hear could be part of the game. Trust no one.
Alex opened her mouth, wanted to say something, to tell her mother that this morning she would go off to a place she had never been, would board an airplane for only the third time in her life with someone who was still a stranger to her, and together the two of them would try to solve a twenty-year-old mystery.
"Is there any way Aldiss is innocent of the Dumant murders, Dr. Locke?"
Locke laughed. "Impossible," he said. "That man killed those two girls."
Writing: 5 out of 5 stars
Plot: 5 out of 5 stars
Characters: 4 out of 5 stars
Reading Immersion: 4.75 out 5 stars
BOOK RATING: 4.7 out of 5 stars
In 1994, nine Honors Literature students were chosen to attend the class "Unraveling a Literary Mystery" at Jasper College. The class was to be distance-taught by Dr. Richard Aldiss from his home at the Rock Mountain Correctional Facility, where he is serving time for the 1982 murders of two female Dumant University graduate students. There was no pre-published syllabus, and no one, outside of Aldiss himself, knows what the class will entail.
Paul Fallows is a reclusive novelist. No one knows his identity, and his books have spawned an intellectual game called "The Procedure", where the players must reenact scenes from Fallows' novels perfectly. The Procedure can happen anywhere, at any time, without any warning.
The class assignment: Find Fallow's identity to find the REAL killer.
Alex Shipley, a former student in the class, one who was instrumental in freeing Aldiss from prison, is now a well-known Harvard professor, involved in a ho-hum relationship. Another former student, Dr. Michael Tanner, who became the Jasper College resident modernist, is found dead in an apparent copycat of the Dumant murders. Alex is called in by the interim dean at Jasper, Dr. Anthony Rice, who asks her to talk to Aldiss. Is she to talk to him simply to get his take? Or is he the killer? If he IS the killer, was he actually really innocent of the previous murders? Did she help free a killer to kill again?
As the 7 remaining students (another former student apparently killed himself a few years ago - or did he?) gather for Michael's memorial service, Alex finds herself suspicious of all of them. Could one of them be the person who murdered Michael?
Dominance fluctuates between past and present, with many mysterious references to The Procedure long before this reader could figure out what The Procedure actually was - this is not a bad thing, as it was a sort of quest to figure it out. Aldiss - what an interesting character to read - he reads like Hannibal Lector (only without the "ummm ... brain is tasty" part). He is very intelligent, and very creepy. The book itself is rather a puzzle or even a maze - with many doors to open and corners to turn while reading. It will keep you on your toes, and both past and present are equally interesting.
From what I've read, Mr. Lavender calls his novels "puzzle thrillers" - not quite thrillers OR mysteries, but a blend of both. I would say that this description is very appropriate. I was totally drawn in to this story (although frustrated a bit at not knowing for a while what The Procedure was), flipping pages almost as fast as I could read, wanting to know what happened next or who the killer was in each case. Were they the same person? THEN, towards the end, it started reading and feeling almost like Friday the 13th or Scream (the original ones where the tension is so high and you have no idea what's going to happen next, but without the blood and gore) - the bad guy/girl keeps popping up - but is it the same villain or different ones or is is more than one working together? - just a nail-biting type of read.
This title was my "Fave of the Week" when I read it. If you like thrillers, mysteries, intellectual mysteries ... if you like a book that makes you feel as though you're solving a puzzle - this is the one for you.
QUOTES (from an ARC; may be different in final copy):
You have to believe that I had nothing to do with what is happening now in that house. And also know this -
Alex's eyes ran over the rest of the notes, and when she saw what Aldiss had written next, her breach caught in her throat.
-the Procedure has begun. Everything they say, everything you hear could be part of the game. Trust no one.
Alex opened her mouth, wanted to say something, to tell her mother that this morning she would go off to a place she had never been, would board an airplane for only the third time in her life with someone who was still a stranger to her, and together the two of them would try to solve a twenty-year-old mystery.
"Is there any way Aldiss is innocent of the Dumant murders, Dr. Locke?"
Locke laughed. "Impossible," he said. "That man killed those two girls."
Writing: 5 out of 5 stars
Plot: 5 out of 5 stars
Characters: 4 out of 5 stars
Reading Immersion: 4.75 out 5 stars
BOOK RATING: 4.7 out of 5 stars
July 3, 2011
When I first read the summary of Dominance by Will Lavender, I immediately wanted it. A literary mystery, phantom authors, novels as riddles – what could be more exciting?
Unfortunately, Dominance fell short of its unique premise. I’m not sure if my expectations were too high but I think Dominance had all the elements to make it a great thriller yet for a multitude of reasons detailed below, it didn’t quite get there.
The progression of the narrative was well done – Lavender kept the suspense meter amped up as the book alternated between 1994 and the present. Little by little we learn how Alex proved Richard Aldiss’s innocence in 1994, as we simultaneously learn how she uncovers the murderer’s identity in the present. This technique hooked me into the dual storylines and kept me turning the pages.
I also liked the way Lavender effectively depicted the competitiveness between the star students in 1994, as this was a crucial aspect of the plot.
The relationship between Alex Shipley, a Harvard professor and former student, and Richard Aldiss, the enigmatic professor whose innocence she proved in 1994, is derivative of that between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. I liked how Richard Aldiss’s character is deliberately ambiguous – did he or didn’t he do it? Is he or isn’t he evil? However, his explanation of why he kept secret for 12 years a key piece of information which could have proven his innocence is just ridiculous. Being tight-lipped and coy when you’re facing life in prison isn’t the mark of an enigma, it’s unrealistic.
And that’s really what my dissatisfaction boils down to - the lack of logic. I expect red herrings in mysteries, but the ones used here did not make sense to me. People talk in riddles, which they don’t do in real life.
The entire plot revolves around the literary game called the “Procedure” which sounds as mysterious and inviting as a .... biopsy or anything requiring surgical tools. For me to have bought into the book, I needed to buy into the “Procedure’s” dangerous mystique; unfortunately, it just sounded like Dungeons and Dragons for lit majors.
"'We were walking down the street...and someone started saying lines. I recognized the passage--it was from deep inside the novel...I fell into my own role, saying the lines and using the gestures exactly from the text. It has to be exact; the player has to show a mastery of Fallows, down to the very last detail. And that second time I knew from others' faces--I had won.'
"'And what happens if you win?' Mitchell asked quietly.
"Aldiss turned his gaze up. Something had changed in his face, eclipsed the hard-set tension from before. His eyes flashed. 'You are accepted,' he said. 'The Procedure ends and you become one of the elite.'
"'And if you lose?' asked Alex. 'What then?'
...
"'Then you are shunned. And as a Fallows scholar, to not be inside, to not be one of them--that is a fate worse than death.'"
A character called it “high nerd” and I would have to agree (and this is coming from a pretty nerdy lit major). Nothing in the book indicated to me that the “Procedure” was a life or death game (or even fun) so the above passage made me laugh – sorry, I really didn’t mean to. Connected with the “Procedure” are the novels of Paul Fallows, the phantom author who may or may not be invented. Again, upon reading vague descriptions of his books, I didn’t see any clues as to why they would inspire a cult following.
Dominance felt schizophrenic – one moment an elaborate literary mystery, the next a potboiler riddled with clichéd phrases. I don’t mind reading one or the other, but mashed up together, the result confused and disappointed me.
Unfortunately, Dominance fell short of its unique premise. I’m not sure if my expectations were too high but I think Dominance had all the elements to make it a great thriller yet for a multitude of reasons detailed below, it didn’t quite get there.
The progression of the narrative was well done – Lavender kept the suspense meter amped up as the book alternated between 1994 and the present. Little by little we learn how Alex proved Richard Aldiss’s innocence in 1994, as we simultaneously learn how she uncovers the murderer’s identity in the present. This technique hooked me into the dual storylines and kept me turning the pages.
I also liked the way Lavender effectively depicted the competitiveness between the star students in 1994, as this was a crucial aspect of the plot.
The relationship between Alex Shipley, a Harvard professor and former student, and Richard Aldiss, the enigmatic professor whose innocence she proved in 1994, is derivative of that between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. I liked how Richard Aldiss’s character is deliberately ambiguous – did he or didn’t he do it? Is he or isn’t he evil? However, his explanation of why he kept secret for 12 years a key piece of information which could have proven his innocence is just ridiculous. Being tight-lipped and coy when you’re facing life in prison isn’t the mark of an enigma, it’s unrealistic.
And that’s really what my dissatisfaction boils down to - the lack of logic. I expect red herrings in mysteries, but the ones used here did not make sense to me. People talk in riddles, which they don’t do in real life.
The entire plot revolves around the literary game called the “Procedure” which sounds as mysterious and inviting as a .... biopsy or anything requiring surgical tools. For me to have bought into the book, I needed to buy into the “Procedure’s” dangerous mystique; unfortunately, it just sounded like Dungeons and Dragons for lit majors.
"'We were walking down the street...and someone started saying lines. I recognized the passage--it was from deep inside the novel...I fell into my own role, saying the lines and using the gestures exactly from the text. It has to be exact; the player has to show a mastery of Fallows, down to the very last detail. And that second time I knew from others' faces--I had won.'
"'And what happens if you win?' Mitchell asked quietly.
"Aldiss turned his gaze up. Something had changed in his face, eclipsed the hard-set tension from before. His eyes flashed. 'You are accepted,' he said. 'The Procedure ends and you become one of the elite.'
"'And if you lose?' asked Alex. 'What then?'
...
"'Then you are shunned. And as a Fallows scholar, to not be inside, to not be one of them--that is a fate worse than death.'"
A character called it “high nerd” and I would have to agree (and this is coming from a pretty nerdy lit major). Nothing in the book indicated to me that the “Procedure” was a life or death game (or even fun) so the above passage made me laugh – sorry, I really didn’t mean to. Connected with the “Procedure” are the novels of Paul Fallows, the phantom author who may or may not be invented. Again, upon reading vague descriptions of his books, I didn’t see any clues as to why they would inspire a cult following.
Dominance felt schizophrenic – one moment an elaborate literary mystery, the next a potboiler riddled with clichéd phrases. I don’t mind reading one or the other, but mashed up together, the result confused and disappointed me.
July 7, 2011
You ever read a book where you dislike the character so much you WANT them to get picked off by the serial killer? No...well that was my reaction to the main character in Dominance. This chick was a flaming idiot (when she wasn't being so annoyingly condescending). I could excuse her behavior when she was in college considering she was young and I can buy her naivete then. However, if 15 years pass and you're still acting like a clueless idiot, then I'm thinking that's more of an "it's always going to be there" thing rather than something that can be beaten out of you with time. Unfortunately, the stupid idiot of the main character wasn't my only problem with Dominance.
Dominance is one of those books that has a kick-ass, wonderfully creepy premise...that doesn't live up to its full potential. For example, the Procedure is supposed to be this creepy life and death game that makes everyone who is so absorbed with it go a teeny bit crazy. Yeah, I didn't buy that considering that the Procedure was barely alluded to and what was alluded wasn't interesting enough to make a normal sane person get so involved in it that they are desperate to WIN it at all cost. And the clues that the Night Class connected to Aldiss and the murders were very...out there. I have a hard time believing that someone as idiotic as Alex can make a connection between clues A and B (when A and B have absolutely NOTHING to do with each other and require tons of leaps in logic) when it takes a genius to make those types of connections (and a genius she is not).
Another thing: I get that the author was trying to have this sort of symbiotic relationship between Alex (the idiot) and Aldiss (the somewhat creepy suspect guy), but I just couldn't get into it. Aldiss has the potential to be truly...off and creepy, but he never comes out that way. I didn't see him having the type of presence that would get students to do his bidding. He just wasn't that much of a developed character. In fact, none of the characters were very well-developed. And that made it hard to care about them and react woefully when they started kicking the bucket.
Why the two stars instead of one? Because Dominance really did have a great premise. I also liked how the narrative shifted from the 1994 Night Class to Alex's current thoughts (that could be because I wouldn't have been able to deal with a book that had Alex's sole narrative throughout it). The 1994 narrative reminded me heavily of those teenage slasher flicks from the '90s (a lot of which I adore), so that was naturally my favorite part of Dominance. The current plot was one that I could take or leave.
So, in the end, I was disappointed with Dominance. I think it had the potential to be a really creepy, well-drawn out, psychological thriller, but it fell short. However, the premise was so unique that it kept me reading (that and the fact that it was a Vine book, of course) even when I was rolling my eyes at the stupidity of the main character regardless of the fact that I'm supposed to buy that she's really smart. Anyway, I think maybe I'll give the author's next book a shot in hopes that it's better than this one.
Dominance is one of those books that has a kick-ass, wonderfully creepy premise...that doesn't live up to its full potential. For example, the Procedure is supposed to be this creepy life and death game that makes everyone who is so absorbed with it go a teeny bit crazy. Yeah, I didn't buy that considering that the Procedure was barely alluded to and what was alluded wasn't interesting enough to make a normal sane person get so involved in it that they are desperate to WIN it at all cost. And the clues that the Night Class connected to Aldiss and the murders were very...out there. I have a hard time believing that someone as idiotic as Alex can make a connection between clues A and B (when A and B have absolutely NOTHING to do with each other and require tons of leaps in logic) when it takes a genius to make those types of connections (and a genius she is not).
Another thing: I get that the author was trying to have this sort of symbiotic relationship between Alex (the idiot) and Aldiss (the somewhat creepy suspect guy), but I just couldn't get into it. Aldiss has the potential to be truly...off and creepy, but he never comes out that way. I didn't see him having the type of presence that would get students to do his bidding. He just wasn't that much of a developed character. In fact, none of the characters were very well-developed. And that made it hard to care about them and react woefully when they started kicking the bucket.
Why the two stars instead of one? Because Dominance really did have a great premise. I also liked how the narrative shifted from the 1994 Night Class to Alex's current thoughts (that could be because I wouldn't have been able to deal with a book that had Alex's sole narrative throughout it). The 1994 narrative reminded me heavily of those teenage slasher flicks from the '90s (a lot of which I adore), so that was naturally my favorite part of Dominance. The current plot was one that I could take or leave.
So, in the end, I was disappointed with Dominance. I think it had the potential to be a really creepy, well-drawn out, psychological thriller, but it fell short. However, the premise was so unique that it kept me reading (that and the fact that it was a Vine book, of course) even when I was rolling my eyes at the stupidity of the main character regardless of the fact that I'm supposed to buy that she's really smart. Anyway, I think maybe I'll give the author's next book a shot in hopes that it's better than this one.
September 25, 2017
About 3o pages into this book, I began to think, "what is going on here?". Now that I have completed it, I am still asking that question.
Let me set the scenario: Richard Aldiss, a brilliant professor of literature at a small exclusive university, is arrested and given a life sentence for the axe murders of two graduate students. He hints that he knows who actually killed the students but only gives elusive and meaningless clues to the police who have no idea what he is talking about (nor does the reader). One of the professor's areas of compelling interest is discovering the identity of a best selling writer who has become a cult figure with serious students of literature. When he finally is allowed to teach a course from prison on this mysterious author to a small select group of highly intelligent students, he begins to drop hints to them as to the possible connection between that author and the murders. He challenges them to decipher his meanings and allusions that can be found in the author's writings.
The story timeline moves between the televised course being given by Professor Aldiss and the present day (15 years later) when the remaining members of the students are reuniting at the university for a memorial service for one of the original group. And the murders begin again. By the way, the professor is out of prison, exonerated of the axe murders and living nearby. Why is he free, what happened in those 15 years that changed the complexion of the case, and what the hell is going on?
This is one of the strangest books I have ever read and even the denouement on the last two pages leaves the reader confused and wondering how many murderers there really are and who they really are. A frustrating read that left me wondering if I had somehow missed the point, if there was a point.
Let me set the scenario: Richard Aldiss, a brilliant professor of literature at a small exclusive university, is arrested and given a life sentence for the axe murders of two graduate students. He hints that he knows who actually killed the students but only gives elusive and meaningless clues to the police who have no idea what he is talking about (nor does the reader). One of the professor's areas of compelling interest is discovering the identity of a best selling writer who has become a cult figure with serious students of literature. When he finally is allowed to teach a course from prison on this mysterious author to a small select group of highly intelligent students, he begins to drop hints to them as to the possible connection between that author and the murders. He challenges them to decipher his meanings and allusions that can be found in the author's writings.
The story timeline moves between the televised course being given by Professor Aldiss and the present day (15 years later) when the remaining members of the students are reuniting at the university for a memorial service for one of the original group. And the murders begin again. By the way, the professor is out of prison, exonerated of the axe murders and living nearby. Why is he free, what happened in those 15 years that changed the complexion of the case, and what the hell is going on?
This is one of the strangest books I have ever read and even the denouement on the last two pages leaves the reader confused and wondering how many murderers there really are and who they really are. A frustrating read that left me wondering if I had somehow missed the point, if there was a point.
July 25, 2011
Ok The first part of this book is good. The second part of this book is good. The last part is like a wild river raft ride. You just get slammed and drenched and slammed and drenched. It is that incredibly good. All I can say is wow. Got this from the giveaways and boy am I glad.
February 9, 2020
Сравниха я с "Тайната история" на Дона Тарт, била по-добра всъщност, което за мен е просто... "Тайната история" е класи над тази книга по всички параграфи. Те всъщност нямат нищо общо, дори жанрът не е същият.
July 10, 2011
How I loathe thee, let me count the ways...
I should have learned my lesson after reading Lavender's first book, Obedience, which also exhibited the same failings: an intriguing, thrilling, Hollywood-ready plot ruined by a complete lack of interesting characterization and believability. Well, he's done it again and I know without a doubt I won't be picking up the next one.
Dominance wants to be Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, except more literary. The fact that all of the main characters are literary scholars working to unravel a real-life literary mystery I guess is supposed to elevate this to higher literature, but the story is just as lurid, pulpy, and ridiculous as its back matter makes it sound. That author Will Lavender was actually a literature professor would serve to lend it some credibility, one would think, but this book made me glad that he never taught any of my undergraduate classes, because I have some serious doubt about his credentials. Anyone studying literature closely enough to pursue post-graduate studies (and in turn teach at the undergraduate level) would probably have learned a few things about characterization and how far one can reasonably suspend disbelief. There's about as much nuance here as the axe on the cover.
I simply don't buy Alex Shipley. There is absolutely nothing that makes her resemble anything near a Harvard literature professor except that Lavender tells us she is one. Nothing she does, nor the discoveries she makes in the night class, lead me to believe that this woman is confident or intelligent enough to be a leading literary scholar at a leading educational institution. She's revered for discovering the true identity of Paul Fallows and freeing Fallows scholar Richard Aldiss from false imprisonment as a result, but I fail to understand why this would be so revelatory or important in the first place. And while I can understand why she's a naif completely in thrall to Prof. Aldiss as a student, her naivete is not particularly believable because she's only a one-note shell of a character in the first place, and it certainly can't explain why she's so slavishly devoted to protecting Aldiss when the second set of murders takes place. She believes everything he tells her and repeatedly allows him to intimidate her, which I found infuriating. I just couldn't identify with her on any level, because she never felt like a real person. She appears to struggle with insecurity because Lavender *tells* us she does on a couple of occasions, but I guess writing believable characters got in the way of the puzzle and suspense, since nearly nothing happens that isn't meant to unravel part of the mystery. I really hated Alex because she was so weak and because of her steadfast refusal to doubt the most likely suspects. Her only character traits were "smart" and "pretty" (and I guess "stupid", too, since the "twist" ending confirmed the suspicion I had throughout the whole novel which took Alex completely by surprise).
I also didn't believe in Prof. Aldiss. Why anyone would sit and rot in a jail cell for 11 years just sitting on the knowledge that would have exonerated him in the first place is completely beyond me. The fact that he then created this weird ruse of the night class on the off chance that one of the 9 specially selected students would become so obsessed with the fictional novel The Coil to seek out the identity of its reclusive author and thus prove his innocence is even more unbelievable. What if Alex wasn't this weird literary overachiever? Another night class? And why did Alex have to be the only one to solve the mystery? Why couldn't the class work together? When the second set of murders gets rolling, Aldiss again knows more than he lets on, toying with Alex to get her to figure it out (and she does, kinda, and then Aldiss tries to get one last jab in, revealing the novel's final twist to her). Okay, so Aldiss obviously gets off on yanking people's chains. But to what end? He likes screwing with people's minds so much that he'd sit in jail waiting for someone to jump through all of his ridiculous hoops and then let innocent people get murdered just to keep exerting control and power over Alex (if, in fact, he's as innocent of these murders as he proclaims)? His power plays fail to accomplish anything, serving only to further ostracize him from the scholarly community and further cast suspicion on himself. So even though Aldiss is meant to be this Hannibal Lecter-esque criminal mastermind, he really just comes across as pathetic and illogical, and I never understood why Alex kept letting him get away with being an ass.
The Procedure, the game on which all the murders in the novel hinge, is also completely ridiculous. Lavender doesn't bother to explain it until nearly halfway through the book, which is frustrating enough, and since the characters are all the undeveloped kind of stock victims you'd find in a common horror film, it doesn't make sense why everyone becomes so obsessed by it. The reader is simply told that to understand Fallows is to play, and excel at, the Procedure, which is ultimately a strange, cult form of one-upsmanship. As an English major that has also unabashedly fangirled over certain works of literature, I can understand why some scholars would obsess over the author's identity, but not to the point of endangering themselves, and I certainly don't understand the obsession associated with the Procedure. Role-playing games are one thing, but obsessively reenacting two novels simply to prove who's memorized the texts the best? I think I can understand some dense literature perfectly fine without play acting and memorizing it verbatim.
I also couldn't shake some creeping feelings of misogyny in the text, either. There are only three women in the night class, which I find a little strange since women far outnumber men in the study of literature at the undergraduate level. Why would less than half of the top English majors in the school be women? On top of that, these three women - Alex, Sally, and Melissa - are portrayed unfavorably, as is one of the murder victims. Alex, our protagonist, is naive, insecure, and pretty (but she's really smart, though! She went to/teaches at Harvard!) . Sally is described as a quiet nonentity, whose intelligence is so quiet and unobtrusive that nobody pays attention to her (and neither does Lavender, since she completely disappears for the last half of the story). Melissa's only personality traits are that she's a manipulative slut . Alex is jealous and resentful of her, too, simply because she's sexual and she's confident enough to get what she wants and prove her mettle (which apparently makes her a bitch). Shawna, the ingenious student who was murdered because she knew too much, was characterized as being sexually manipulative. This left a really bad taste in my mouth, on top of all the other problems wrong with the book.
In the end, this is just a horror movie in words, and not even a good one. While I can forgive Lavender for recycling And Then There Were None, he does absolutely nothing to elevate his idea beyond Christie's famous work. The result of the twist ending was not a surprise to me at all, but the identity of the murderer was a little unexpected (though if the reader were given the connecting detail that Alex realizes at the very end, this may not have been the case), and that's about all I can say in the book's favor. If you liked Obedience, chances are you'll still like Dominance too, but for my buck, I'd rather just pick up a copy of And Then There Were None and not have to suffer the frustration and misogyny.
I should have learned my lesson after reading Lavender's first book, Obedience, which also exhibited the same failings: an intriguing, thrilling, Hollywood-ready plot ruined by a complete lack of interesting characterization and believability. Well, he's done it again and I know without a doubt I won't be picking up the next one.
Dominance wants to be Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, except more literary. The fact that all of the main characters are literary scholars working to unravel a real-life literary mystery I guess is supposed to elevate this to higher literature, but the story is just as lurid, pulpy, and ridiculous as its back matter makes it sound. That author Will Lavender was actually a literature professor would serve to lend it some credibility, one would think, but this book made me glad that he never taught any of my undergraduate classes, because I have some serious doubt about his credentials. Anyone studying literature closely enough to pursue post-graduate studies (and in turn teach at the undergraduate level) would probably have learned a few things about characterization and how far one can reasonably suspend disbelief. There's about as much nuance here as the axe on the cover.
I simply don't buy Alex Shipley. There is absolutely nothing that makes her resemble anything near a Harvard literature professor except that Lavender tells us she is one. Nothing she does, nor the discoveries she makes in the night class, lead me to believe that this woman is confident or intelligent enough to be a leading literary scholar at a leading educational institution. She's revered for discovering the true identity of Paul Fallows and freeing Fallows scholar Richard Aldiss from false imprisonment as a result, but I fail to understand why this would be so revelatory or important in the first place. And while I can understand why she's a naif completely in thrall to Prof. Aldiss as a student, her naivete is not particularly believable because she's only a one-note shell of a character in the first place, and it certainly can't explain why she's so slavishly devoted to protecting Aldiss when the second set of murders takes place. She believes everything he tells her and repeatedly allows him to intimidate her, which I found infuriating. I just couldn't identify with her on any level, because she never felt like a real person. She appears to struggle with insecurity because Lavender *tells* us she does on a couple of occasions, but I guess writing believable characters got in the way of the puzzle and suspense, since nearly nothing happens that isn't meant to unravel part of the mystery. I really hated Alex because she was so weak and because of her steadfast refusal to doubt the most likely suspects. Her only character traits were "smart" and "pretty" (and I guess "stupid", too, since the "twist" ending confirmed the suspicion I had throughout the whole novel which took Alex completely by surprise).
I also didn't believe in Prof. Aldiss. Why anyone would sit and rot in a jail cell for 11 years just sitting on the knowledge that would have exonerated him in the first place is completely beyond me. The fact that he then created this weird ruse of the night class on the off chance that one of the 9 specially selected students would become so obsessed with the fictional novel The Coil to seek out the identity of its reclusive author and thus prove his innocence is even more unbelievable. What if Alex wasn't this weird literary overachiever? Another night class? And why did Alex have to be the only one to solve the mystery? Why couldn't the class work together? When the second set of murders gets rolling, Aldiss again knows more than he lets on, toying with Alex to get her to figure it out (and she does, kinda, and then Aldiss tries to get one last jab in, revealing the novel's final twist to her). Okay, so Aldiss obviously gets off on yanking people's chains. But to what end? He likes screwing with people's minds so much that he'd sit in jail waiting for someone to jump through all of his ridiculous hoops and then let innocent people get murdered just to keep exerting control and power over Alex (if, in fact, he's as innocent of these murders as he proclaims)? His power plays fail to accomplish anything, serving only to further ostracize him from the scholarly community and further cast suspicion on himself. So even though Aldiss is meant to be this Hannibal Lecter-esque criminal mastermind, he really just comes across as pathetic and illogical, and I never understood why Alex kept letting him get away with being an ass.
The Procedure, the game on which all the murders in the novel hinge, is also completely ridiculous. Lavender doesn't bother to explain it until nearly halfway through the book, which is frustrating enough, and since the characters are all the undeveloped kind of stock victims you'd find in a common horror film, it doesn't make sense why everyone becomes so obsessed by it. The reader is simply told that to understand Fallows is to play, and excel at, the Procedure, which is ultimately a strange, cult form of one-upsmanship. As an English major that has also unabashedly fangirled over certain works of literature, I can understand why some scholars would obsess over the author's identity, but not to the point of endangering themselves, and I certainly don't understand the obsession associated with the Procedure. Role-playing games are one thing, but obsessively reenacting two novels simply to prove who's memorized the texts the best? I think I can understand some dense literature perfectly fine without play acting and memorizing it verbatim.
I also couldn't shake some creeping feelings of misogyny in the text, either. There are only three women in the night class, which I find a little strange since women far outnumber men in the study of literature at the undergraduate level. Why would less than half of the top English majors in the school be women? On top of that, these three women - Alex, Sally, and Melissa - are portrayed unfavorably, as is one of the murder victims. Alex, our protagonist, is naive, insecure, and pretty (but she's really smart, though! She went to/teaches at Harvard!) . Sally is described as a quiet nonentity, whose intelligence is so quiet and unobtrusive that nobody pays attention to her (and neither does Lavender, since she completely disappears for the last half of the story). Melissa's only personality traits are that she's a manipulative slut . Alex is jealous and resentful of her, too, simply because she's sexual and she's confident enough to get what she wants and prove her mettle (which apparently makes her a bitch). Shawna, the ingenious student who was murdered because she knew too much, was characterized as being sexually manipulative. This left a really bad taste in my mouth, on top of all the other problems wrong with the book.
In the end, this is just a horror movie in words, and not even a good one. While I can forgive Lavender for recycling And Then There Were None, he does absolutely nothing to elevate his idea beyond Christie's famous work. The result of the twist ending was not a surprise to me at all, but the identity of the murderer was a little unexpected (though if the reader were given the connecting detail that Alex realizes at the very end, this may not have been the case), and that's about all I can say in the book's favor. If you liked Obedience, chances are you'll still like Dominance too, but for my buck, I'd rather just pick up a copy of And Then There Were None and not have to suffer the frustration and misogyny.
June 29, 2011
In Dominance, brilliant literature professor Dr. Richard Aldiss arranges to teach a televised class from a prison cell where he is serving consecutive life sentences for the brutal murders of two graduate students. Aldiss challenges the nine top English majors at Jasper College to unravel a literary mystery, the identity of pseudonymous author Paul Fallows. During the course, Alex Shipley assures her academic future by uncovering not only Fallows' identity but also information that clears Aldiss of the murders. Years later one of the former class members is murdered in a manner very similar to the grad students' killings, and Alex is again involved in the search for a killer.
Will Lavender really knows how to set up intriguing puzzles and establish an atmosphere of suspense. There are four mysteries in Dominance. Who is Paul Fallows? Who killed the two graduate students? Who killed Alex's former classmate? And was the death of another former classmate several years earlier really a suicide? I was thoroughly drawn into Alex's investigations.
Notwithstanding a fascinating yarn, I cannot recommend Dominance. There are problems with details and plot plausibility so numerous that I will not list them all. As an example, Alex and Keller are in a car, and the book says Alex pulled into a driveway. In the next sentence Keller parks the car. Did they switch drivers in between? Lewis Prine is described as a psychiatrist in one place and a psychologist in another. On one page it says that Dean Rice has never visited Aldiss, and on the next page it says the house has changed since the last time he was there. On the level of situational implausibilities, the police detective comes running into the middle of a memorial service for a murder victim to announce there has been another murder & to clear the room. There is no suggestion that the people at the service are in immediate danger, and I do think even the most zealous police office would have waited until Alex finished her eulogy! Alex and Keller have a conversation inside Keller's room while Frank is being murdered outside the bedroom door, apparently without hearing any noise from the violent encounter. The Jasper students are supposedly the smartest, most competitive of Jasper's senior English majors. Fallows only published two books, but apparently none of the students reads the second book or, at least, notes the striking fact that the second book is about someone who is an impersonator. It is almost the end of the semester before Keller mentions to Alex that he has read the second book and announces dramatically that this detail might be significant. Students in a group like this would probably all have read these two books before the first week was over and be clamoring to discuss the meaning of the second book's theme. Perhaps worst of all, it becomes clear at the end of the book that Aldiss had information that could have cleared him without the very uncertain & elaborate scheme of a night class in which he hoped a student would discover very tenuous clues and follow the trail to the same end. He did not need that class. No matter how much this strange man liked to play games, I cannot believe he did not DISlike being in prison even more. I could go on with the examples, but you get my drift....
Despite the many small and large flaws that kept annoying me, I did want to continue to read to find the solution to the many puzzles, so if you can completely suspend your critical and analytical thinking when you read an exciting book, then you will probably enjoy Dominance. If not, you are better off looking elsewhere for your summer read.
Will Lavender really knows how to set up intriguing puzzles and establish an atmosphere of suspense. There are four mysteries in Dominance. Who is Paul Fallows? Who killed the two graduate students? Who killed Alex's former classmate? And was the death of another former classmate several years earlier really a suicide? I was thoroughly drawn into Alex's investigations.
Notwithstanding a fascinating yarn, I cannot recommend Dominance. There are problems with details and plot plausibility so numerous that I will not list them all. As an example, Alex and Keller are in a car, and the book says Alex pulled into a driveway. In the next sentence Keller parks the car. Did they switch drivers in between? Lewis Prine is described as a psychiatrist in one place and a psychologist in another. On one page it says that Dean Rice has never visited Aldiss, and on the next page it says the house has changed since the last time he was there. On the level of situational implausibilities, the police detective comes running into the middle of a memorial service for a murder victim to announce there has been another murder & to clear the room. There is no suggestion that the people at the service are in immediate danger, and I do think even the most zealous police office would have waited until Alex finished her eulogy! Alex and Keller have a conversation inside Keller's room while Frank is being murdered outside the bedroom door, apparently without hearing any noise from the violent encounter. The Jasper students are supposedly the smartest, most competitive of Jasper's senior English majors. Fallows only published two books, but apparently none of the students reads the second book or, at least, notes the striking fact that the second book is about someone who is an impersonator. It is almost the end of the semester before Keller mentions to Alex that he has read the second book and announces dramatically that this detail might be significant. Students in a group like this would probably all have read these two books before the first week was over and be clamoring to discuss the meaning of the second book's theme. Perhaps worst of all, it becomes clear at the end of the book that Aldiss had information that could have cleared him without the very uncertain & elaborate scheme of a night class in which he hoped a student would discover very tenuous clues and follow the trail to the same end. He did not need that class. No matter how much this strange man liked to play games, I cannot believe he did not DISlike being in prison even more. I could go on with the examples, but you get my drift....
Despite the many small and large flaws that kept annoying me, I did want to continue to read to find the solution to the many puzzles, so if you can completely suspend your critical and analytical thinking when you read an exciting book, then you will probably enjoy Dominance. If not, you are better off looking elsewhere for your summer read.
July 11, 2011
Who is Paul Fallows? He's an American literary giant, the author of a pair of novels scoured in college English departments around the country for deep, eternal truths about the human condition. For decades, brilliant English literature students at elite universities across the nation participate in a twisted game called the Procedure in attempting to discover the recondite Fallow's long-obscured true identity. The object of the game is to win, of course. The best players find winning the game comes not so much from trying to uncover who is Fallows, but why is Fallows? And the cost of victory may well prove fatal.
"Dominance" is Will Lavender's second novel, and it's a good book. It's billed as a thriller, but the majority of it reads more like a cozy literary mystery sporadically spattered with murders of varyingly violent description. The story lurches back and forth in time between events set in the present-day and 1994. Though Lavender handles the flashback aspect of his tale reasonably well, it can still make for a disconcerting read, and adds unnecessary confusion to a fairly straightforward murder mystery. Lavender writes well -- despite the recurrent flashbacks the plot progresses at a decent clip, his dialogue is generally realistic, and he's very good at setting tone, mood and atmosphere.
Readers will note obvious correlations linking "Dominance" to popular works preceding it. The relationship between Lavender's main characters, Harvard professor Alex Shipley and her (unjustly?) imprisoned former professor Richard Aldiss, is heavily influenced by the similar contretemps between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling in Thomas Harris' 1988 novel, "The Silence of the Lambs." Much of the present-day plot happens in a creepy old house on a fictional college campus, where seven of Aldiss' former students gather to mourn the death of a recently murdered classmate only to each find him- or herself as much prey as suspect while freshly killed corpses pile up. It's reminiscent of any number of locked room murder mysteries, and sprinkled too with elements from Shirley Jackson's 1959 horror novel "The Haunting of Hill House," and Stephen King's 2002 television miniseries "Rose Red" (which itself owes homage to Jackson's novel).
It's an intelligent and worthwhile read, but readers with an appetite for an action-packed serial killer thriller won't be sated by "Dominance."
"Dominance" is Will Lavender's second novel, and it's a good book. It's billed as a thriller, but the majority of it reads more like a cozy literary mystery sporadically spattered with murders of varyingly violent description. The story lurches back and forth in time between events set in the present-day and 1994. Though Lavender handles the flashback aspect of his tale reasonably well, it can still make for a disconcerting read, and adds unnecessary confusion to a fairly straightforward murder mystery. Lavender writes well -- despite the recurrent flashbacks the plot progresses at a decent clip, his dialogue is generally realistic, and he's very good at setting tone, mood and atmosphere.
Readers will note obvious correlations linking "Dominance" to popular works preceding it. The relationship between Lavender's main characters, Harvard professor Alex Shipley and her (unjustly?) imprisoned former professor Richard Aldiss, is heavily influenced by the similar contretemps between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling in Thomas Harris' 1988 novel, "The Silence of the Lambs." Much of the present-day plot happens in a creepy old house on a fictional college campus, where seven of Aldiss' former students gather to mourn the death of a recently murdered classmate only to each find him- or herself as much prey as suspect while freshly killed corpses pile up. It's reminiscent of any number of locked room murder mysteries, and sprinkled too with elements from Shirley Jackson's 1959 horror novel "The Haunting of Hill House," and Stephen King's 2002 television miniseries "Rose Red" (which itself owes homage to Jackson's novel).
It's an intelligent and worthwhile read, but readers with an appetite for an action-packed serial killer thriller won't be sated by "Dominance."
July 8, 2011
I was unimpressed with Will Lavender’s novel, Dominance. It had an excellent premise and I really wanted to like it, but the writing was terrible. Granted, I’m very detail-oriented (especially when reading a mystery), but I think most readers would be bothered by Lavender’s inconsistencies. Usually the problems were small, such as the driver of a car changing from page to page, but they are constant and extremely annoying. The plot is also entirely unbelievable. The most interesting and intelligent character, Aldiss, had his ticket out of prison the entire time, yet he wanted to play games with his own mortality? I think not.
Dominance was disappointing to say the least. Personally, I wish someone would re-write this book because I’d love to read it without the perpetual flaws. For now, it’s a waste of a perfectly good plot.
Reviewed by Brittany for Book Sake. http://booksake.blogspot.com
Dominance was disappointing to say the least. Personally, I wish someone would re-write this book because I’d love to read it without the perpetual flaws. For now, it’s a waste of a perfectly good plot.
Reviewed by Brittany for Book Sake. http://booksake.blogspot.com
March 4, 2018
Ik weet niet hoe Will Lavender het doet, maar hij bezorgt mij de kriebels. Het verhaal trekt zich in je op en je wordt er deel van. Zo ook zijn personages die hij gebruikt.
Ik vond zijn andere boek, Het verborgen raadsel, ook al verdomd goed. Ik zat echt tot de laatste pagina met vragen en spanning. Het einde was daar echt totaal verrast.
In dit boek is de schrijfstijl hetzelfde maar een andere verhaallijn. Het wordt al duidelijk dat er een spelletje wordt gespeeld maar is het tot de laatste pagina onduidelijk waar het spel vandaan komt, wie meespelen, wat er gaande is en waarom het gespeeld is. Will Lavender is zelf ook docent geweest en daardoor weet hij heel goed de manier van les geven te beschrijven, maar ook het studentenleven en hoe studenten om kunnen gaan met colleges.
Will maakt gebruik van korte hoofdstukken die steeds afwisselen tussen het heden en 1994. Elk hoofdstuk eindigt met een vraag of raadsel die pas verder gaat in het volgende hoofdstuk van hetzelfde tijdperk. Dit alleen al is knap neergezet.
We volgen Alex die in 1994 een mysterieus college heeft gevolgd van Aldiss, 15 jaar later is ze er opnieuw mee geconfrontreerd en beleeft zij eigenlijk het college opnieuw.
Van het eerste boek zei ik nog: ik wil ook wel zo’n bijzondere manier van college geven gehad hebben. Maar bij dit boek denk ik, nee dankje. Een gemeen spelletje, maar wel keurig neergezet.
Maar die laatste pagina is echt niet leuk! Zo kun je het verhaal niet eindigen, ook al eindigt het met een open einde. Maar hierdoor zorgt Will er wel voor dat de lezer er mee bezig blijft.
Ik vond zijn andere boek, Het verborgen raadsel, ook al verdomd goed. Ik zat echt tot de laatste pagina met vragen en spanning. Het einde was daar echt totaal verrast.
In dit boek is de schrijfstijl hetzelfde maar een andere verhaallijn. Het wordt al duidelijk dat er een spelletje wordt gespeeld maar is het tot de laatste pagina onduidelijk waar het spel vandaan komt, wie meespelen, wat er gaande is en waarom het gespeeld is. Will Lavender is zelf ook docent geweest en daardoor weet hij heel goed de manier van les geven te beschrijven, maar ook het studentenleven en hoe studenten om kunnen gaan met colleges.
Will maakt gebruik van korte hoofdstukken die steeds afwisselen tussen het heden en 1994. Elk hoofdstuk eindigt met een vraag of raadsel die pas verder gaat in het volgende hoofdstuk van hetzelfde tijdperk. Dit alleen al is knap neergezet.
We volgen Alex die in 1994 een mysterieus college heeft gevolgd van Aldiss, 15 jaar later is ze er opnieuw mee geconfrontreerd en beleeft zij eigenlijk het college opnieuw.
Van het eerste boek zei ik nog: ik wil ook wel zo’n bijzondere manier van college geven gehad hebben. Maar bij dit boek denk ik, nee dankje. Een gemeen spelletje, maar wel keurig neergezet.
Maar die laatste pagina is echt niet leuk! Zo kun je het verhaal niet eindigen, ook al eindigt het met een open einde. Maar hierdoor zorgt Will er wel voor dat de lezer er mee bezig blijft.
January 16, 2013
The protagonist: NOT the hero in Iowa, NOT particularly intelligent, NOT a feminist character. In fact, she's dumb, easily manipulated, and would never have been given a teaching job in an highschool AP lit class let alone at Harvard. And WHY on earth would she continue to read and teach and obsess over books that were written by a serial killing family that almost killed her? And if she wanted to find the third manuscript for herself, why would she show the "lost page" to an entire freshman lit class? And why was she using TRANSPARENCY PAPER in 2011? Answer: She's a dumb broad who slept her way to the top.
The Protocol: interesting idea, not well thought-out or well executed; there are too many contradictions. Yes, a bunch of students get together to act out scenes from their two favorite books. How, praytell, is that any more innately dangerous than civil war re-enactments or a ren faire? That period of history saw more brutal bloodshed than any other time on American soil, yet most people who re-enact battles do have the good sense to not use live ammunition and don't stab each other with bayonets. Re-enacting books (even murder mysteries) is not dangerous. With as much hype as The Protocol was given in the fist three quarters of the book, especially with all the references to how dangerous it is, I expected something more, well, dangerous. And speaking of the protagonist, she states at one point that although she initially failed at playing The Protocol, she eventually became very good. Here's the problem with that statement: she only played ONE TIME before going to Iowa, where she confronted a serial killer and nearly died. In order for her to become really good, she would have had to return from this horrifically traumatic experience and CONTINUE PLAYING The Protocol, which has a stated goal of taking the players inside the mind of Paul Fallows, whom she now knows to have been a serial killer. I reiterate that she's an idiot, and I add that she's a complete tool.
The night class: interesting idea, but *really* not well thought out or well executed. How many university classes meet for five weeks for only one hour per week?
The Coil and The Golden Silence: The puzzles in them aside, they sound like boring, post-modern tripe. Other than the fact that they were written by a serial killer who was hoping to be found and punished, the books are not interesting in themselves, and I fail to see why people would obsess over them.
Paul Fallows: Interesting idea, better executed than the other interesting ideas in this book. The idea that the mother "turned" her son (probably by abusing him into muteness and then committing him to a psych ward when he was 8 or 9) and then used him to carry on the family business of brutally murdering young women is very twisted. However, the setup for their demise was not well executed and felt like a non sequiter. What is intriguing is that because we only have Lydia's word on the matter, we don't know how large a part she and Charlie played in the father's earlier murders, or if he did die of a blood clot after all. The glaring problem with all of this was that there were supposedly FIFTY volumes of encyclopedia of women that had been killed. Given that the m.o. of the killers was to cover the bodies in books, I have a hard time buying that from 1972 to 1994, only two bodies were ever found.
Richard Aldiss: A sociopath who gets off on watching other people suffer.
Matthew Owen: I figured out that he was the killer as soon as he stated that he knew the members of the night class from the previous funeral of Daniel Hayden.
The writing: Awkward and difficult to follow. Sample sentence: "It had been offered at night because this was the only viable time, the only hour when the warden would allow the murderer free to teach." Less awkward without shifting tenses: "It had been offered at night because that was the only viable time, the only hour that the warden would allow the murderer to teach." Just sayin', it could use more editing.
My three-star rating: Because despite its flaws, it was interesting. I just wish that the author had done better work with his good ideas.
The Protocol: interesting idea, not well thought-out or well executed; there are too many contradictions. Yes, a bunch of students get together to act out scenes from their two favorite books. How, praytell, is that any more innately dangerous than civil war re-enactments or a ren faire? That period of history saw more brutal bloodshed than any other time on American soil, yet most people who re-enact battles do have the good sense to not use live ammunition and don't stab each other with bayonets. Re-enacting books (even murder mysteries) is not dangerous. With as much hype as The Protocol was given in the fist three quarters of the book, especially with all the references to how dangerous it is, I expected something more, well, dangerous. And speaking of the protagonist, she states at one point that although she initially failed at playing The Protocol, she eventually became very good. Here's the problem with that statement: she only played ONE TIME before going to Iowa, where she confronted a serial killer and nearly died. In order for her to become really good, she would have had to return from this horrifically traumatic experience and CONTINUE PLAYING The Protocol, which has a stated goal of taking the players inside the mind of Paul Fallows, whom she now knows to have been a serial killer. I reiterate that she's an idiot, and I add that she's a complete tool.
The night class: interesting idea, but *really* not well thought out or well executed. How many university classes meet for five weeks for only one hour per week?
The Coil and The Golden Silence: The puzzles in them aside, they sound like boring, post-modern tripe. Other than the fact that they were written by a serial killer who was hoping to be found and punished, the books are not interesting in themselves, and I fail to see why people would obsess over them.
Paul Fallows: Interesting idea, better executed than the other interesting ideas in this book. The idea that the mother "turned" her son (probably by abusing him into muteness and then committing him to a psych ward when he was 8 or 9) and then used him to carry on the family business of brutally murdering young women is very twisted. However, the setup for their demise was not well executed and felt like a non sequiter. What is intriguing is that because we only have Lydia's word on the matter, we don't know how large a part she and Charlie played in the father's earlier murders, or if he did die of a blood clot after all. The glaring problem with all of this was that there were supposedly FIFTY volumes of encyclopedia of women that had been killed. Given that the m.o. of the killers was to cover the bodies in books, I have a hard time buying that from 1972 to 1994, only two bodies were ever found.
Richard Aldiss: A sociopath who gets off on watching other people suffer.
Matthew Owen: I figured out that he was the killer as soon as he stated that he knew the members of the night class from the previous funeral of Daniel Hayden.
The writing: Awkward and difficult to follow. Sample sentence: "It had been offered at night because this was the only viable time, the only hour when the warden would allow the murderer free to teach." Less awkward without shifting tenses: "It had been offered at night because that was the only viable time, the only hour that the warden would allow the murderer to teach." Just sayin', it could use more editing.
My three-star rating: Because despite its flaws, it was interesting. I just wish that the author had done better work with his good ideas.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 17, 2011
There is a skit on Saturday Night Live, a spoof of Miley Cyrus's acting ability, where the faux Cyrus looks at the camera and says in the midst of an intense scene, "Wow this is really dramatic, I mean like this is really emotional and stuff!" In Will Lavender's impressive, yet overly back cover blurbed Dominance, the writer seems to stumble slightly into the same narrative mode. The well plotted novel tells the story of a college class taught from prison in 1994 by a former professor convicted of the slayings of two coeds. And flashes forward to present day where the professor is exonerated thanks to a student's efforts. At times it feels there is a little too much telling and not so much showing, "Wow these murders are gruesome, Wow we're in a puzzle, We are so being toyed with and stuff". Even the novel's centerpiece, the first two murders, in which the victim's blood is used to make a Rorschach on the wall, seem to happen off stage, making the crime scene's gruesome quotient come off as a little vanilla to a reader familiar with exotic deaths on CSI or the Red John smiley face in victim's blood trope on The Mentalist. A great lapse in a novel that features only an axe as it's front cover art, albeit one made of books. Then there is the constant shifting between present day and 1994. Each of these shifts comes with a facing blank page, title page, then another blank page. Phenomenologically this aims to create tension or a page turner effect, but after about ten times it creates dissonance and annoyance instead of the narrative's dominance. A simple "1994" or "Present Day" printed under each chapter heading would be sufficient and less insulting to the reader's intelligence in a novel that presents itself as a puzzle.. Still with all these distractions, the novel is engaging and interesting, especially about half way in. And seriously, I liked it, but i wanted to LOVE it after the back jacket hype. Lavender does hook the reader and Dominance's epiphanic final twist on the terminal page is very satisfying. Lavender's conceit is original and particularly enjoyable is his Salinger-esque Paul Fallows plot. In the end, I will happily read Lavender's next book where I believe he will really exert his obvious talents.
February 22, 2014
I'm not even finished, but my eyes are starting to hurt from all the rolling. This book requires a suspension of disbelief so strong that I can't sustain it for more than a couple sentences. We are to believe that nine undergraduate students consider themselves "scholars" on a mysterious modernist author (though his purported age—the professor feels the need to put to rest any speculation that he is the author—puts him firmly among the postmodernists). We are to believe that they are "the best of the best" but their actions in both the present day and the earlier timeline demonstrate no particular scholarly aptitude or impressive talent. We are to believe that the students’ game, called The Procedure, is dark, intense, meaningful—deadly even—when in practice it comes off as an embarrassing overdramatization. We are to believe that a police detective would bring an English professor to a crime scene to ask for her expertise, and we are to believe that same detective would gather a group of suspects together to leer at the latest victim, crime scene and evidence be damned. We are to believe that the students are brought together by an enigmatic, Lecterian professor who is teaching via live video feed from prison after being convicted of murdering two students at his previous university. And we are to believe that they, by unraveling two works of literature, can learn who really killed those two students, and bring freedom to their fearless leader. Not through police investigation, the absence of which is the true mystery of this novel. Not even through following a believable paper trail through the academic and publishing world to discover the author’s true identity. But through literary deconstruction.
It is a unique premise, and one that utterly fails in practice. The author can only tell us so much, without offering any evidence, before we realize that he doesn’t have the skill to back up all the supposed brilliance that he writes about. It’s a house of cards, each character, each premise a hollow, fragile façade waiting for the slightest draft of skepticism to topple the whole affair.
It is a unique premise, and one that utterly fails in practice. The author can only tell us so much, without offering any evidence, before we realize that he doesn’t have the skill to back up all the supposed brilliance that he writes about. It’s a house of cards, each character, each premise a hollow, fragile façade waiting for the slightest draft of skepticism to topple the whole affair.
August 1, 2011
The year is 1994.
Jasper College is about to embark on a new course. It is titled “Unraveling a Literary Mystery” The class will be talk via television by convicted murderer, Dr. Richard Aldiss. Dr. Aldiss’s inspiration was recluse author, Paul Fallows. Followers of Fallows’s work would play a game called “The Procedure”. You were special if you were invited to play. The rules of the game are simple…Try and uncover the true identity of Mr. Fallows through his work. If you do than you are in the top elite few that have solved this great mystery but if you don’t than you should hope for death.
Present day.
Alex Shipley was one of Dr. Aldiss’s students. Now, it seems that someone is still playing the game only the person is playing for keeps. Two people have already been killed, who attended Dr. Aldiss’s class. It is up to Alex to find out who among the remaining former students is the killer.
I can remember reading Mr. Lavender’s debut novel, Obedience and saying, “Ok, this is an author to keep me eyes on”. I was right. Mr. Lavender’s newest book, Dominance is out of this world rockin! This book reminded me of the classic, board game Clue. Which I loved by the way…Mr. Plum in the library with a candle stick. From the first page until the last page, I was hooked. The past story line just help to add to the present. If it was not for Alex, Dr. Aldiss and a great story line, this would have fallen flat. Most of the other characters, while secondary were flat and boring. The ending was one of the best. I yelled when I read the ending. Mr. Lavender can not leave me hanging like this. There are a few “ghost writer” authors that I have read that I have tried to uncover their identity but I have never tried to discover who they were from their books like the students did for Paul Fallows. I just may have to start my own Procedure game.
Jasper College is about to embark on a new course. It is titled “Unraveling a Literary Mystery” The class will be talk via television by convicted murderer, Dr. Richard Aldiss. Dr. Aldiss’s inspiration was recluse author, Paul Fallows. Followers of Fallows’s work would play a game called “The Procedure”. You were special if you were invited to play. The rules of the game are simple…Try and uncover the true identity of Mr. Fallows through his work. If you do than you are in the top elite few that have solved this great mystery but if you don’t than you should hope for death.
Present day.
Alex Shipley was one of Dr. Aldiss’s students. Now, it seems that someone is still playing the game only the person is playing for keeps. Two people have already been killed, who attended Dr. Aldiss’s class. It is up to Alex to find out who among the remaining former students is the killer.
I can remember reading Mr. Lavender’s debut novel, Obedience and saying, “Ok, this is an author to keep me eyes on”. I was right. Mr. Lavender’s newest book, Dominance is out of this world rockin! This book reminded me of the classic, board game Clue. Which I loved by the way…Mr. Plum in the library with a candle stick. From the first page until the last page, I was hooked. The past story line just help to add to the present. If it was not for Alex, Dr. Aldiss and a great story line, this would have fallen flat. Most of the other characters, while secondary were flat and boring. The ending was one of the best. I yelled when I read the ending. Mr. Lavender can not leave me hanging like this. There are a few “ghost writer” authors that I have read that I have tried to uncover their identity but I have never tried to discover who they were from their books like the students did for Paul Fallows. I just may have to start my own Procedure game.
May 22, 2011
Will Lavender is inventing his own genre--"puzzle thrillers", which his website describes as "novels that are not quite mysteries and not quite thrillers but incorporate elements of both". Whatever else they may be, they are tantalizing reads to a mystery buff and book lover
such as myself.
"Dominance" jumps back and forth between 1994 and the present day, following nine very special literature students and their highly controversial professor. The students were handpicked and Richard Aldiss, the professor, was teaching via a video feed from prison, where he was serving a sentence for the murder of two grad students in the last class he taught. He's an expert in an elusive author, Paul Fellows, who is a mystery in and of himself as he had only written two (possibly three) books of cultishly fascinating literature. This new class was charged with solving the literary mystery of just who this author was. To do so, they had to learn to play The Procedure, developed from Fellow's book,
and cryptically mysterious. Startling things happen during the course of the class, making one student very famous in the literary world.
Flash forward to the present day when the class is called together because of the suicide (or was it?) of one of their own. Strange things begin as the old friends meet each other again, and begin to die one by one.
This is a gloriously frustrating book to puzzle through as you are given clues from two different mysteries nearly two decades apart but very much having to do with each other. The deeper into the book you get, the faster the clues come until there is just NO way you can put it down until the last page is turned. And even then...well, read it and see.
such as myself.
"Dominance" jumps back and forth between 1994 and the present day, following nine very special literature students and their highly controversial professor. The students were handpicked and Richard Aldiss, the professor, was teaching via a video feed from prison, where he was serving a sentence for the murder of two grad students in the last class he taught. He's an expert in an elusive author, Paul Fellows, who is a mystery in and of himself as he had only written two (possibly three) books of cultishly fascinating literature. This new class was charged with solving the literary mystery of just who this author was. To do so, they had to learn to play The Procedure, developed from Fellow's book,
and cryptically mysterious. Startling things happen during the course of the class, making one student very famous in the literary world.
Flash forward to the present day when the class is called together because of the suicide (or was it?) of one of their own. Strange things begin as the old friends meet each other again, and begin to die one by one.
This is a gloriously frustrating book to puzzle through as you are given clues from two different mysteries nearly two decades apart but very much having to do with each other. The deeper into the book you get, the faster the clues come until there is just NO way you can put it down until the last page is turned. And even then...well, read it and see.
April 17, 2011
Dominance by Will Lavender ISBN:978-4516-1729-0
Advance review : coming in July 2011 from Simon & Schuster
My advance copy came by UPS in the middle of a snow storm. The poor UPS driver got stuck in our driveway and had to be towed! It worth all the trouble to get this book into my hands...
Dominance is a "who dun it" murder mystery. Complete with a cast of interesting characters called together in an old mansion. That is where the comparison to the formula murder mystery ends. This book is a quick paced easy read with unexpected plot twists. Just when you think you have it all figured out, the author reveals information that changes everything!
The book bounces between present day and 1994 when the cast of characters were in undergraduate school and part a unique class. I have to admit that I kept getting the students in the class confused. Just about the time I was reaching frustration, Will Lavender thoughtfully included a summary of all the students in chapter 18!
After reaching the end of this book I have the urge to re-read the whole book now that I know "Who Dun It". I never did have it all figured out. I think it would be an entirely different read know the ending! I loved that this book kept me guessing to the very end. That is the mark of a great mystery! I am looking forward to the next Will Lavender book.
Advance review : coming in July 2011 from Simon & Schuster
My advance copy came by UPS in the middle of a snow storm. The poor UPS driver got stuck in our driveway and had to be towed! It worth all the trouble to get this book into my hands...
Dominance is a "who dun it" murder mystery. Complete with a cast of interesting characters called together in an old mansion. That is where the comparison to the formula murder mystery ends. This book is a quick paced easy read with unexpected plot twists. Just when you think you have it all figured out, the author reveals information that changes everything!
The book bounces between present day and 1994 when the cast of characters were in undergraduate school and part a unique class. I have to admit that I kept getting the students in the class confused. Just about the time I was reaching frustration, Will Lavender thoughtfully included a summary of all the students in chapter 18!
After reaching the end of this book I have the urge to re-read the whole book now that I know "Who Dun It". I never did have it all figured out. I think it would be an entirely different read know the ending! I loved that this book kept me guessing to the very end. That is the mark of a great mystery! I am looking forward to the next Will Lavender book.
April 8, 2013
Call it 2.5 stars. It's got what seems to be a can't-miss premise, but author Lavender kinda botches it anyway. It's 1994, and nine students opt to take a night class taught by a literature professor in prison for killing two female students. Then fast-forward to the present day. The profesor was vindicated and released, and one of the students from the night class has been murdered in the same way as the two undergrads from before. The surviving students gather for the funeral only to discover that someone is bent on picking them all off. The book alternates between 1994 and the present-day, and for a while it's a nifty little puzzle, but Lavender is – to put it charitably – a clunky writer. The dialogue is phony, the mystery too often hinges on the kind of coincidences you see coming from a mile off, and Lavender is a graduate of the James Patterson attention-deficit school of plotting, where chapters end before they've barely begun. Toss in an ending that's the kind of schlocky groaner we get in lousy suspense movies all the time, and I won't be rushing out to pick up Lavender's next one.
July 14, 2021
Lots of people saying great premise, in what universe is a convicted killer teaching a college class?
That aside, ardent fans of novels embarking on mysterious authors, lost manuscripts and murder - that I see. Unfortunately some elements just aren’t realized The Procedure or overly obtuse olive oil in Homer?
That aside, ardent fans of novels embarking on mysterious authors, lost manuscripts and murder - that I see. Unfortunately some elements just aren’t realized The Procedure or overly obtuse olive oil in Homer?
September 7, 2025
Ώρες ώρες αναρωτιέμαι γιατί μερικά βιβλία έχουν χαμηλή βαθμολογία. Δεν πείθουν; Προτείνονται σε αναγνωστικό κοινό που έχουν συνηθίσει σε πιο «αστυνομικές» πένες;
Ένα από τα πιο ενδιαφέρονται βιβλία μυστηρίου που έχω διαβάσει φέτος.
Άλλωστε, τα καλά βιβλία ποτέ δεν έχουν τέλος...
Ένα από τα πιο ενδιαφέρονται βιβλία μυστηρίου που έχω διαβάσει φέτος.
Άλλωστε, τα καλά βιβλία ποτέ δεν έχουν τέλος...
September 23, 2022
Βιβλίο που ανήκει στην υποκατηγορία αστυνομικών dark academia με φόνους που αφορούν σπουδαστές, καθηγητες λογοτεχνίας και μηνύματα κρυμμένα σε βιβλία συγγραφέα φάντασμα.
Τεξτμπουκ μεταμοντερνισμός που λατρεύω δηλαδή αλλά τελικά καμία ουσία
Τεξτμπουκ μεταμοντερνισμός που λατρεύω δηλαδή αλλά τελικά καμία ουσία
July 12, 2011
In 1994, nine English majors met for a night class at Jasper College. What made the night class special was its professor: Richard Aldiss, a convicted murderer. The nine students are given the task of discovering the identity of reclusive, renowned author Paul Fallows.
Years later, after the class resulted in Aldiss’ acquittal and the revelation of Fallows’ identity, the students reunite at a funeral. One of their classmates was murdered in an eerie imitation of the crimes of which Aldiss was accused.
Dominance by Will Lavender keeps both timelines in the air smoothly by focusing on Alex Shipley. In 1994, she’s the student responsible for solving the 1994 mysteries. In present day, she’s a Harvard professor. The reputation from her student days lead the police and Jasper officials to ask her to help solve the current crime.
That should be the signal that Dominance is not a piece of literature, that it’s nothing more than a Lifetime movie in book form. How Lavender juggles the two stories, however, makes it a little more than that, requiring a little more from readers expecting a James-Patterson-esque mystery to leave behind on the airplane or forget after reading. The final twist of Dominance makes it a novel readers won’t soon forget.
In 1994, the students don’t know what’s about to happen to them. In the present, they’ve all lived through it and don’t need to discuss it in detail. Lavender cleverly avoids exposition traps by doling out information almost on a need-to-know basis.
For example, the night class introduces the students to a game known as the Procedure. They refer to it in the present day setting as well. The rules of the game or how the students are involved remain unclear for a good while. Lavender explains it at exactly the right time, when readers are just about to give up caring about the game out of frustration. Granted, the game is odd and it’s hard to picture anyone taking it as seriously as its proponents, but, at the same time, it’s popular on college campuses where young adults may be more indulgent. That is, it’s popular on Lavender’s fictional campuses, although it’s not far fetched to see it catching on in reality.
The biggest problem with the game is its dependence on Fallows. Although the author is a central part of the mysteries, Lavender doesn’t do much to establish why he carries such importance in modern literature and why his works would captivate students so.
Aside from Alex and Aldiss (who although innocent of murder seems capable of everything else and more of which he’s accused), many of the characters blend into each other. The grieving widow, herself a former member of the class, appears on scene only to cry and serve as a brief red herring. That’s not a spoiler; it’s evident she’s never really a suspect. Another classmate appears to serve only as a sexual diversion. Alex’s former boyfriend is a little more fleshed out, but not fully enough to prevent some contradictions. Oddly, the minor character who does stand out is Daniel Hayden, one of the students. Hayden dies between 1994 and the current story, but his behavior in 1994 makes him someone Lavender should used as an example for how to create the remaining characters.
These flaws don’t matter all that much. Dominance remains an entertaining and suspenseful read. Lavender builds tension, increasing the stakes as the novel progresses. Readers can’t sit back and wait for the answers to the novel’s central mysteries to be handed to them. As Alex investigates each time’s mystery, every piece of information leads to the next, with clues intertwining across time. Sometimes the characters miss obvious connections, but there’s plenty for the reader to have to work to figure out. Much like Aldiss points his students in the right direction (or occasional wrong direction) and leaves it to them to identify and answer the correct question, Dominance expects its readers to do the same.
Not all answers readers come up with turn out to be correct. And the last pages of Dominance have the potential to cast the previous pages in a new light. A re-read promises a new experience.
Dominance is an above-average summer read. Pages will turn quickly.
Years later, after the class resulted in Aldiss’ acquittal and the revelation of Fallows’ identity, the students reunite at a funeral. One of their classmates was murdered in an eerie imitation of the crimes of which Aldiss was accused.
Dominance by Will Lavender keeps both timelines in the air smoothly by focusing on Alex Shipley. In 1994, she’s the student responsible for solving the 1994 mysteries. In present day, she’s a Harvard professor. The reputation from her student days lead the police and Jasper officials to ask her to help solve the current crime.
That should be the signal that Dominance is not a piece of literature, that it’s nothing more than a Lifetime movie in book form. How Lavender juggles the two stories, however, makes it a little more than that, requiring a little more from readers expecting a James-Patterson-esque mystery to leave behind on the airplane or forget after reading. The final twist of Dominance makes it a novel readers won’t soon forget.
In 1994, the students don’t know what’s about to happen to them. In the present, they’ve all lived through it and don’t need to discuss it in detail. Lavender cleverly avoids exposition traps by doling out information almost on a need-to-know basis.
For example, the night class introduces the students to a game known as the Procedure. They refer to it in the present day setting as well. The rules of the game or how the students are involved remain unclear for a good while. Lavender explains it at exactly the right time, when readers are just about to give up caring about the game out of frustration. Granted, the game is odd and it’s hard to picture anyone taking it as seriously as its proponents, but, at the same time, it’s popular on college campuses where young adults may be more indulgent. That is, it’s popular on Lavender’s fictional campuses, although it’s not far fetched to see it catching on in reality.
The biggest problem with the game is its dependence on Fallows. Although the author is a central part of the mysteries, Lavender doesn’t do much to establish why he carries such importance in modern literature and why his works would captivate students so.
Aside from Alex and Aldiss (who although innocent of murder seems capable of everything else and more of which he’s accused), many of the characters blend into each other. The grieving widow, herself a former member of the class, appears on scene only to cry and serve as a brief red herring. That’s not a spoiler; it’s evident she’s never really a suspect. Another classmate appears to serve only as a sexual diversion. Alex’s former boyfriend is a little more fleshed out, but not fully enough to prevent some contradictions. Oddly, the minor character who does stand out is Daniel Hayden, one of the students. Hayden dies between 1994 and the current story, but his behavior in 1994 makes him someone Lavender should used as an example for how to create the remaining characters.
These flaws don’t matter all that much. Dominance remains an entertaining and suspenseful read. Lavender builds tension, increasing the stakes as the novel progresses. Readers can’t sit back and wait for the answers to the novel’s central mysteries to be handed to them. As Alex investigates each time’s mystery, every piece of information leads to the next, with clues intertwining across time. Sometimes the characters miss obvious connections, but there’s plenty for the reader to have to work to figure out. Much like Aldiss points his students in the right direction (or occasional wrong direction) and leaves it to them to identify and answer the correct question, Dominance expects its readers to do the same.
Not all answers readers come up with turn out to be correct. And the last pages of Dominance have the potential to cast the previous pages in a new light. A re-read promises a new experience.
Dominance is an above-average summer read. Pages will turn quickly.
June 15, 2011
This is a Reading Good Books review.
Expected publication: July 5th 2011 by Simon & Schuster.
* In compliance with FTC guidelines, it should be noted that I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
“What if you could read a book and treat it as a competition between you and its author?” – Alex Shipley, Chapter 3.
That is pretty much how I tackle anything from the mystery/thriller genre, whether it be a TV show, a movie, or in this case… a book. Will Lavender is an author of what he calls “puzzle thrillers,” novels that are not quite mysteries and not quite thrillers but incorporate elements of both, and I have never read anything like it.
Like most of you, I enjoy a good mystery book. I love the challenge it posts in the beginning, the chase, the way it all unfolds in the end. My book-love started with those Nancy Drew Mysteries collections. As a kid, I ate all of it up. But after a while, it begins to look the same. Someone gets killed, there are clues left behind, the villain taunts the heroes, the villain gets caught. Over and over. And sometimes, it builds and builds only to an ending that is less than satisfying. This book breaks through all that.
The book jumps right into it; setting up the premise that will last the whole book. Our hero, Dr. Alexandra “Alex” Shipley, was a part of an elite experimental class in Jasper College, Vermont in 1994. This class was being taught by a jailed professor named Dr. Richard Adliss, convicted of brutally murdering 2 grad students. The crime scenes were littered with the books of the author Paul Fallows. Who is this elusive Paul Fallows? Richard Adliss then shows his class of 9 students how to answer that question.
Fast forward to “Present Day”. Alex is now a professor at Harvard. She is famous in the literary world as the one who found out about Fallows’ true identity. In the process, she also acquitted Adliss of all charges against him. But then, one of her former classmates gets killed in the same way as the grad students’ murders. She then uses the skills Adliss taught them to solve this mystery.
The book bounces back and forth between 1994 and present day. Normally, I get turned off by this storytelling device but Lavender showed excellent use of flashbacks. It kept me on my toes, guessing at every turn of the page. Both past and present settings are equally exciting. I love that both settings move forward rather the present the only one progressing and the flashbacks are just random points in the past. Parallel time lines, I enjoyed. Also, I liked the cast of characters. Some are a little bit cliche but the focus is very heavy on the main characters that I did not mind the minor ones that much.
It is definitely one of the most frustrating books that I have read in a while. When reading mystery novels, I usually solve the puzzle somewhere midway through the story. Some authors just make it too obvious. But this one? Oh boy. I had suspicions but I was never 100% sure until it was officially revealed. The plot was airtight and solid. The flashbacks are very essential to the present day storyline as if it answers the questions of the present.
(On a side note, I was playing around with the idea that the BAU team from the CBS show Criminal Minds would have a field day with the villains in this book. It should be interesting to see what Dr. Spencer Reid does with the whole Paul Fallows lore and how they would eventually figure out what was going on. Looking at my notes, one of the bullets said, “Totally Criminal Minds material!”)
I know some of these do not make sense but I am telling you, read this book and you will see the genius! You will be bombarded left and right with clues that you would not be able to put it down until the mystery is solved. I read it and treated it like a competition between me and the author and guess what, Will Lavender won.
Rating: 5/5.
Recommendation: If you’re tired of your usual mystery/thriller novels and looking for something different, pick this one up. This is definitely something new.
Expected publication: July 5th 2011 by Simon & Schuster.
* In compliance with FTC guidelines, it should be noted that I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
“What if you could read a book and treat it as a competition between you and its author?” – Alex Shipley, Chapter 3.
That is pretty much how I tackle anything from the mystery/thriller genre, whether it be a TV show, a movie, or in this case… a book. Will Lavender is an author of what he calls “puzzle thrillers,” novels that are not quite mysteries and not quite thrillers but incorporate elements of both, and I have never read anything like it.
Like most of you, I enjoy a good mystery book. I love the challenge it posts in the beginning, the chase, the way it all unfolds in the end. My book-love started with those Nancy Drew Mysteries collections. As a kid, I ate all of it up. But after a while, it begins to look the same. Someone gets killed, there are clues left behind, the villain taunts the heroes, the villain gets caught. Over and over. And sometimes, it builds and builds only to an ending that is less than satisfying. This book breaks through all that.
The book jumps right into it; setting up the premise that will last the whole book. Our hero, Dr. Alexandra “Alex” Shipley, was a part of an elite experimental class in Jasper College, Vermont in 1994. This class was being taught by a jailed professor named Dr. Richard Adliss, convicted of brutally murdering 2 grad students. The crime scenes were littered with the books of the author Paul Fallows. Who is this elusive Paul Fallows? Richard Adliss then shows his class of 9 students how to answer that question.
Fast forward to “Present Day”. Alex is now a professor at Harvard. She is famous in the literary world as the one who found out about Fallows’ true identity. In the process, she also acquitted Adliss of all charges against him. But then, one of her former classmates gets killed in the same way as the grad students’ murders. She then uses the skills Adliss taught them to solve this mystery.
The book bounces back and forth between 1994 and present day. Normally, I get turned off by this storytelling device but Lavender showed excellent use of flashbacks. It kept me on my toes, guessing at every turn of the page. Both past and present settings are equally exciting. I love that both settings move forward rather the present the only one progressing and the flashbacks are just random points in the past. Parallel time lines, I enjoyed. Also, I liked the cast of characters. Some are a little bit cliche but the focus is very heavy on the main characters that I did not mind the minor ones that much.
It is definitely one of the most frustrating books that I have read in a while. When reading mystery novels, I usually solve the puzzle somewhere midway through the story. Some authors just make it too obvious. But this one? Oh boy. I had suspicions but I was never 100% sure until it was officially revealed. The plot was airtight and solid. The flashbacks are very essential to the present day storyline as if it answers the questions of the present.
(On a side note, I was playing around with the idea that the BAU team from the CBS show Criminal Minds would have a field day with the villains in this book. It should be interesting to see what Dr. Spencer Reid does with the whole Paul Fallows lore and how they would eventually figure out what was going on. Looking at my notes, one of the bullets said, “Totally Criminal Minds material!”)
I know some of these do not make sense but I am telling you, read this book and you will see the genius! You will be bombarded left and right with clues that you would not be able to put it down until the mystery is solved. I read it and treated it like a competition between me and the author and guess what, Will Lavender won.
Rating: 5/5.
Recommendation: If you’re tired of your usual mystery/thriller novels and looking for something different, pick this one up. This is definitely something new.
July 10, 2011
Real literature professors probably shouldn't read this book. Unlike Donna Tartt, A.S. Byatt, and Matthew Pearl, Will Lavender does not manage to construct intellectual characters, who are convincingly intellectual. Instead of telling the reader, repeatedly, that Richard Aldiss is a genius and that the students selected for his night class are exceptionally bright, Lavender needs to convince the reader that these individuals are more intelligent than the average,literate Joe or Josey.
The dialogue should be more challenging than the following excerpts:
"What is literature?"
"Literature is emotion."
"Literature is a writer's secret life recorded in symbols."
"Great books are both of these things....The emotion in Anna Karenina is fierce. The symbolism in books such as Ulysses and Beneath the Wheel and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, is still being fought over in lit programs across the world." (19)
Would a professor who can expect students to have read Anna Karenina and Ulysses be satisfied to pose such an entry level question? The students are all described as "upperclass English majors" at Harvard!
Also, I need to know more about Alex Shipley's career as an academic in order to understand how her participation in solving a murder has led to her appointment as a professor of literature at Harvard. So far as I know, Harvard appointments aren't based on tabloid notoriety.
Now, I admit I was fighting this narrative from the beginning mostly for the same reason that real crime scene analysts express incredulity at TV programs such as CSI. Insiders will likely balk when verisimilitude is flagrantly challenged. Yes, I’m willing to suspend disbelief to some extent in order to enjoy a work of fiction. For example, I was quite bemused that Richard Aldiss was able to teach a class via audio-visual hookup from prison without any technological glitches whatsoever. Does this ever happen in the real world? I’ve been the professor in such a classroom with students communicating via long-distance audio-video connection—and I’ve also participated in meetings involving professors at different institutions. If we aren’t coping with audio difficulties, we’re working around video glitches. I also can’t tell you how many intellectual conference presenters I’ve watched struggling to compensate for malfunctions.
While I can certainly understand why Lavender would not feel the need to introduce technology as antagonist (he’s already juggling numerous characters in his mystery plot), I do think that the author should be conducting some research if he’s going to make professional researchers and professors his primary characters.
That’s what puts Tartt, Byatt, and Pearl in another league. I am convinced that they conduct extensive research in order to compose their texts. Maybe Lavender prefers a less literate audience, but, if so, why insist on the über-cerebral nature of his protagonists?
The dialogue should be more challenging than the following excerpts:
"What is literature?"
"Literature is emotion."
"Literature is a writer's secret life recorded in symbols."
"Great books are both of these things....The emotion in Anna Karenina is fierce. The symbolism in books such as Ulysses and Beneath the Wheel and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, is still being fought over in lit programs across the world." (19)
Would a professor who can expect students to have read Anna Karenina and Ulysses be satisfied to pose such an entry level question? The students are all described as "upperclass English majors" at Harvard!
Also, I need to know more about Alex Shipley's career as an academic in order to understand how her participation in solving a murder has led to her appointment as a professor of literature at Harvard. So far as I know, Harvard appointments aren't based on tabloid notoriety.
Now, I admit I was fighting this narrative from the beginning mostly for the same reason that real crime scene analysts express incredulity at TV programs such as CSI. Insiders will likely balk when verisimilitude is flagrantly challenged. Yes, I’m willing to suspend disbelief to some extent in order to enjoy a work of fiction. For example, I was quite bemused that Richard Aldiss was able to teach a class via audio-visual hookup from prison without any technological glitches whatsoever. Does this ever happen in the real world? I’ve been the professor in such a classroom with students communicating via long-distance audio-video connection—and I’ve also participated in meetings involving professors at different institutions. If we aren’t coping with audio difficulties, we’re working around video glitches. I also can’t tell you how many intellectual conference presenters I’ve watched struggling to compensate for malfunctions.
While I can certainly understand why Lavender would not feel the need to introduce technology as antagonist (he’s already juggling numerous characters in his mystery plot), I do think that the author should be conducting some research if he’s going to make professional researchers and professors his primary characters.
That’s what puts Tartt, Byatt, and Pearl in another league. I am convinced that they conduct extensive research in order to compose their texts. Maybe Lavender prefers a less literate audience, but, if so, why insist on the über-cerebral nature of his protagonists?
June 23, 2011
This book has such a great cover, doesn't it? You've got the old books and parchment forming the bloody axe - how often do you find a thriller with a cover that references the Russians? From the cover alone you can surmise that it's going to be smart and creepy - and it completely delivers. It's a literary thriller, which you don't find too often, that alternates between past and present. In the past section, a group of college students are hand picked for a class taught by a literature professor convicted of committing two horrible murders and covering the bodies of his victims with books. The class, taught via video from the professor's cell will cover murder/mystery in novels. In the future, the professor has been pardoned, but the class members who have since moved on with their lives are starting to die one by one and their bodies are covered in books.
Writing
Good, above average for the genre. I LOVED all the literary references the author threw in, especially those to Crime and Punishment, which is one of my favorite classics. There were a few situations I found hard to believe - an established liberal arts university is having a convicted serial killer teach class from his jail cell - and the class is held in an abandoned building's basement late at night? That's very convenient for adding mood/creepiness, but not really believable. Also, for probably the first 100 pages or so I really felt like I was reading a variation of Silence of the Lambs. The sophisticated, incredibly smart villain manipulating the young woman from his prison cell - how can you read that and not think Hannibal Lechter? Soon, however, the story takes on its own voice and I had forgotten all about Hannibal by the end.
MST3K
Awesome. So much smarter than many thrillers and the literary aspects make it even better. It was smart and scary at the same time. And a very good scary. Like a pull the covers up to my chin scary. BUT, it was scary without resorting to graphic violence and/or sex. I feel like a lot of recent scary movies and books have moved away from the psychological and more toward the sexual. They use sexual violence as a way to shock and scandalize the reader, and insert lots of gore in just to make sure we're paying attention. I love that Will Lavender manages to keep us entertained by his story and his characters and not by shock value or tittilation. There are some extremely creepy characters in this book, and some very scary situations, but those situations aren't based on sexual violence, which is a welcome relief. Think the original Psycho as opposed to the Saw or Hostel franchises.
If you can handle the creepiness, I say go for it. It is a wonderful scary tale without the tropes of sexual violence and gore that are seen way too often for my taste and often cover a lack of plot and character development.
Writing
Good, above average for the genre. I LOVED all the literary references the author threw in, especially those to Crime and Punishment, which is one of my favorite classics. There were a few situations I found hard to believe - an established liberal arts university is having a convicted serial killer teach class from his jail cell - and the class is held in an abandoned building's basement late at night? That's very convenient for adding mood/creepiness, but not really believable. Also, for probably the first 100 pages or so I really felt like I was reading a variation of Silence of the Lambs. The sophisticated, incredibly smart villain manipulating the young woman from his prison cell - how can you read that and not think Hannibal Lechter? Soon, however, the story takes on its own voice and I had forgotten all about Hannibal by the end.
MST3K
Awesome. So much smarter than many thrillers and the literary aspects make it even better. It was smart and scary at the same time. And a very good scary. Like a pull the covers up to my chin scary. BUT, it was scary without resorting to graphic violence and/or sex. I feel like a lot of recent scary movies and books have moved away from the psychological and more toward the sexual. They use sexual violence as a way to shock and scandalize the reader, and insert lots of gore in just to make sure we're paying attention. I love that Will Lavender manages to keep us entertained by his story and his characters and not by shock value or tittilation. There are some extremely creepy characters in this book, and some very scary situations, but those situations aren't based on sexual violence, which is a welcome relief. Think the original Psycho as opposed to the Saw or Hostel franchises.
If you can handle the creepiness, I say go for it. It is a wonderful scary tale without the tropes of sexual violence and gore that are seen way too often for my taste and often cover a lack of plot and character development.
June 12, 2011
I received this novel through a First Reads giveaway. Thanks!
Dominance, by Will Lavender, is an intriguing mystery novel which has a 1994 story line and a present day story line, the former having much influence on the latter. In 1994 nine students at Jasper College are selected to take part in a special course taught by Richard Aldiss, a former professor who is in prison for murdering two college students in 1982.
Aldiss's class is not so much a regular literature course as it is a way for him to get exonerated for the murders he may or may not have committed. Aldiss instructs his students, via a television which broadcasts him from prison, that their assignment is to discover who is the real Paul Fallows - a mysterious, reclusive, unidentified author. The students have mixed feelings about Aldiss, his guilt, his assignment, and each other.
Another aspect of this is the "Procedure"; a game the students are always playing - whether they are aware of it or not.
Alex Shipley, one of the nine students and, in the modern story line, a professor at Harvard, can be said to be the main character in this novel. She is highly intelligent, about to graduate and move on to Harvard graduate school. She finds clues where the other students do not think to look - clues which ultimately lead her to discover the truth.
The modern day story line again brings together the students of Aldiss's night class. However, two students are deceased: one from an apparent suicide and one murdered with the exact methodology as the two girls Aldiss murdered. The remaining seven students gather for the memorial of their murdered classmate. This, unfortunately, is all part of a game, again the Procedure - one that results with more deaths.
This is a quick read; I read it in a few hours. The characters are fairly well developed. Lavender does a great job of weaving the two time lines together and keeping the reader in suspense. One of the major "twists" - who is responsible for the murders - was identified early in the novel (I think it was one particular sentence that gave it away.) However, there were several other twists that I did not predict - such as the one in the last chapter.
Overall, this was an entertaining novel and I look forward to reading other works by Lavender.
Dominance, by Will Lavender, is an intriguing mystery novel which has a 1994 story line and a present day story line, the former having much influence on the latter. In 1994 nine students at Jasper College are selected to take part in a special course taught by Richard Aldiss, a former professor who is in prison for murdering two college students in 1982.
Aldiss's class is not so much a regular literature course as it is a way for him to get exonerated for the murders he may or may not have committed. Aldiss instructs his students, via a television which broadcasts him from prison, that their assignment is to discover who is the real Paul Fallows - a mysterious, reclusive, unidentified author. The students have mixed feelings about Aldiss, his guilt, his assignment, and each other.
Another aspect of this is the "Procedure"; a game the students are always playing - whether they are aware of it or not.
Alex Shipley, one of the nine students and, in the modern story line, a professor at Harvard, can be said to be the main character in this novel. She is highly intelligent, about to graduate and move on to Harvard graduate school. She finds clues where the other students do not think to look - clues which ultimately lead her to discover the truth.
The modern day story line again brings together the students of Aldiss's night class. However, two students are deceased: one from an apparent suicide and one murdered with the exact methodology as the two girls Aldiss murdered. The remaining seven students gather for the memorial of their murdered classmate. This, unfortunately, is all part of a game, again the Procedure - one that results with more deaths.
This is a quick read; I read it in a few hours. The characters are fairly well developed. Lavender does a great job of weaving the two time lines together and keeping the reader in suspense. One of the major "twists" - who is responsible for the murders - was identified early in the novel (I think it was one particular sentence that gave it away.) However, there were several other twists that I did not predict - such as the one in the last chapter.
Overall, this was an entertaining novel and I look forward to reading other works by Lavender.
July 8, 2011
Dominance contains an interesting and completely unexpected mystery that bounces back and forth through time seamlessly. Students from a night class fifteen years ago are being murdered. That class, taught by an imprisoned convicted murder is somehow tied to these new deaths. The police believe the class's star pupil, Alex, can figure out how the class relates to the murders beyond the victim with some help from the now free professor.
Dominance is a literary mystery of sorts, as it relates to novels in many different parts of the story. The night class investigated the mystery of the author Paul Fallows. The crime scenes often involve books. Many of the former students have gone on into literature as a profession, be it writing it, teaching it or acting it out on stage. The mystery of Paul Fellows, the mystery of his books, the mystery of the previous murders and the mystery of the current murders all revolve around that which is hidden in books.
Dominance is a difficult book to describe as it is a multi-layered mystery. Its plotting is nicely complicated. It evolves well, with multiple mysteries all being presented piece by piece, culminating in a shock-after-shock-after-shock ending. Dominance is a highly intelligent, yet eerily disturbing mystery that will leave the reader fearfully anxious at every turn.
Dominance is a literary mystery of sorts, as it relates to novels in many different parts of the story. The night class investigated the mystery of the author Paul Fallows. The crime scenes often involve books. Many of the former students have gone on into literature as a profession, be it writing it, teaching it or acting it out on stage. The mystery of Paul Fellows, the mystery of his books, the mystery of the previous murders and the mystery of the current murders all revolve around that which is hidden in books.
Dominance is a difficult book to describe as it is a multi-layered mystery. Its plotting is nicely complicated. It evolves well, with multiple mysteries all being presented piece by piece, culminating in a shock-after-shock-after-shock ending. Dominance is a highly intelligent, yet eerily disturbing mystery that will leave the reader fearfully anxious at every turn.
August 17, 2011
4.5 STARS
I had a hell of a time putting this one down once I started reading it, especially once I got past the halfway point.
The concept of unraveling a literary mystery was initially an intimidating premise for me because I am not one for analyzing literature. I find mathematics much more predictable and easier to understand.
Anyone who likes putting a puzzle will love this mysterious story. This story alternates between a group of nine handpicked literature majors who are in a class being taught by a convicted killer and 15 later after the class one of the nine is brutally murdered in the exact way the previously mention convicted killer was convicted of killing two girls.
The nine are brought together in a house in the spirit of And Then There Were None, so peoples behaviors can be observed in an effort to determine who killed the classmate.
The story starts off very quickly and maintains that pace throughout the entire story. Alternating back and forth constantly leaving you with the feeling of wanting to know what happens next.
This is a fantastic mystery!
I had a hell of a time putting this one down once I started reading it, especially once I got past the halfway point.
The concept of unraveling a literary mystery was initially an intimidating premise for me because I am not one for analyzing literature. I find mathematics much more predictable and easier to understand.
Anyone who likes putting a puzzle will love this mysterious story. This story alternates between a group of nine handpicked literature majors who are in a class being taught by a convicted killer and 15 later after the class one of the nine is brutally murdered in the exact way the previously mention convicted killer was convicted of killing two girls.
The nine are brought together in a house in the spirit of And Then There Were None, so peoples behaviors can be observed in an effort to determine who killed the classmate.
The story starts off very quickly and maintains that pace throughout the entire story. Alternating back and forth constantly leaving you with the feeling of wanting to know what happens next.
This is a fantastic mystery!
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