Unreliable

Writing instructor and failed novelist Edwin Stith, the narrator of this irksome suspense novel from Irby (The Up and Up), teaches at Notting College, “a leafy liberal arts school” in Ithaca, N.Y. Stith—who may or may not have killed his ex-wife and others—is a paranoid mess and envisions murdering women while waiting to be charged with a crime. His love-hate relationship with his ex-wife was complicated by another bond, this one with a former student who enjoys sleeping with well-endowed men and sending the impotent Stith the photographic evidence. His life becomes exponentially more convoluted when he meets his future family members at his mother’s wedding in Richmond, Va., and becomes entangled in a shady arms deal that may be connected to a domestic terrorism attack. The unreliable narrator shtick gets old fast, especially since Stith can be insufferable. The startling revelation at the end makes up only in part for the passages about Stith’s delusions and his obsession with the part of his anatomy he refers to as his phantom limb. Agent: Sharon Bowers, Miller Bowers Griffin Literary Management. (Apr.)