We Lie Here

L.A. screenwriter Yara Gibson, the narrator of this crafty thriller from bestseller Hall (These Toxic Things), reluctantly returns to her childhood home in suburban Palmdale, Calif., to oversee her parents’ 20th wedding anniversary. Yara, forgetful, asthmatic, and anxiety ridden, is figuratively and literally allergic to Palmdale, with its overwhelming desert dust storms and violent subculture. Her own house is toxic with cigarette smoke, especially the dust-filled attic with its forbidden secrets. While in Palmdale, Yara’s lifelong clashes with her sassy younger sister, petulant father, and dominating and manipulative mother reignite. Felicia Campbell, a second cousin she hardly knows, arrives in a dust storm with a cryptic message: “I have information that will change your life.” Felicia is found dead the next day, and it is Yara’s search for the message’s meaning that wrenches her toward a shocking resolution. Hall exhibits a mastery of slowly building pressure-cooker tension until it explodes. A less accomplished writer might not have been able to be as convincing with occasional situational constructs that stretch credulity, but Hall pulls all of it off with aplomb. She remains a writer to watch. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary. (July)