White Lies

The consequences of a series of white lies play out in Bates’s debut, a melodramatic suspense novel. Driving in a hard rain on her way to Leavenworth, Wash., to start a new teaching job, Katrina Burton stops for a hitchhiker, an impulse she regrets immediately. Frightened by the rude stranger’s words and actions, she lies about her destination and demands he get out of her car. Things deteriorate rapidly after she subsequently discovers that her hitchhiker, Zach Marshall, is a fellow teacher at her school. Zach’s machinations, and additional lies, result in Katrina giving a faculty party at a rented cabin—a party made palatable only by the presence of handsome Jack Reeves, whom she met in a local hardware store. A confrontation at the party, an accidental death, a coverup in which Katrina is complicit, more lies, and more deaths trap Katrina in a Kafkaesque nightmare. Thin characters and improbable sequences weaken the overall impact. (May)