Lying

When 20-year-old Alison Ward lurches out of a packed London rush-hour train with the wrong briefcase, she has no idea that exchanging it for her own will initiate an astonishing journey of religious, sexual and emotional discovery. The prolific Perriam (Devils, for a Change; Born of Woman), who, the publisher says, was expelled from her convent boarding-school for heresy, packs her latest romantic thriller with surprisingly complex characters. Allison has never been a churchgoer, but when she returns the devout James Egerton's briefcase, she is instantly smitten and eagerly becomes a convert to Catholicism. Their happy marriage is marred by Alison's failure to conceive the child they both want so desperately. The Church prohibits in vitro fertilization, and Alison, in despair, loses her newfound faith and begins going through the motions of piety, terrified that the admission of her lapse will destroy her husband's affection for her. Then, she finds herself in an adulterous relationship with a young writer, which compounds her shame. When James, the model of rectitude, also shows mysterious but unmistakable signs of a guilty conscience, the domestic drama becomes explosive. Perriam's novel is as much a revelation of the broad spectrum of Christian belief as it is a candid exploration of the resilience of the marital bond when threatened by deceit. Perriam is not as well-known in this country as similar writer Joanna Trollope, and most of her previous books are out of print, but this provocative story of modern mendacity deserves a second look. (Nov.)