Society of Lies

Film editor Brown sets her sights on the lily-white world of Ivy League secret societies in her underheated debut. Naomi, the younger sister of New York City art dealer Maya, who is half-Asian, half-Black, is preparing to follow in Maya’s footsteps and graduate from Princeton University. Naomi’s commencement ceremony lines up with Maya’s 10-year reunion, so Maya prepares to reconnect with old classmates as she heads to New Jersey for the weekend. Not long after she arrives, authorities pull Naomi’s body from a river near campus. Though her death is ruled an accident, Maya fears her sister was murdered. From there, the perspectives and timelines split: Naomi recounts the months leading up to her death, while Maya conducts an investigation and reflects on her own time at Princeton. When Maya learns that Naomi ignored her advice and joined the same secret society Maya belonged to—one mostly populated by the white children of well-connected families—she revisits a decade-old campus death and worries she neglected to sufficiently warn her sister about the nasty games played by Princeton’s elite. Brown has a knack for atmosphere, but her pacing drags, and it’s difficult to differentiate between the voices of her protagonists. This struggles to stand out from the pack of campus thrillers. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, CAA. (Aug.)