There Will Be Lies

A quality road story, this engrossing novel is a fine achievement from a skilled writer still young in years but already achieving much in his previous two published stories. Its main character, 17-year-old Shelby Cooper, has been continually home-schooled by a mother resolutely unwilling for her daughter ever to have anything like a life of her own. But a street accident puts a new course of events into motion, ending up with mother and daughter driving through America, camping at wild places and increasingly distrustful of all around them. Enter at this stage a mysterious talking coyote, offering Shelby much needed advice coupled with an urgent warning. Such is the conviction with which this story is put together that this otherwise unlikely character seems as real as everyone else. Events steam up to an explosive ending, and although this is a long novel the pace never drags and the suspense remains until the last page. And after all the drama is over there is still plenty to think about in terms of wider arguments about the nature of truth, forgiveness and personal salvation, Another novel is due from this author next year. On this showing, it should be very well worth waiting for.