Publishing Date: August 13, 2024
If You Love Conspiracies, You’ll Love Unraveling This One
Secret Societies. A web of lies. Murder. These are just a few of the elements at work in SOCIETY OF LIES, Lauren Ling Brown’s tribute to the elite underbelly of “bickering”—a word invented to separate “us” from “them.” The novel set against the backdrop of gothic facades and ivy-covered halls, the good news is that Ms. Ling’s debut novel has the perfume of “Read Me” sprinkled all over it. Her excursion into suspense delivers, and any mystery lover will be hooked after one tantalizing whiff of promise that has every intention of being realized.
The plotline solid, the story is told from the perspectives of Maya and Naomi, two sisters who attend Princeton ten years apart. With their parents deceased, Maya feels it’s her duty to take care of her baby sister … and to make sure she has the funds … she joins a secret society that takes care of their own. But no good deed goes unpunished, and when her baby sister winds up dead, she begins to wonder if perhaps the campus’s friendly secret society is to blame. It’s this simple exploration into cause and effect that sets off suspicions that Naomi may not have died as a result of an accident, and ignites a dangerous hunt to find a killer.
The suspense-thriller is cunningly written, the chapters toggling between the two sister’s recollections, all to track their exploits through measured doses of the past. The strategy opens options of who may, or may not, have had anything to do with the artfully executed death. As for suspects, they abound. From teachers who can’t keep their hands off students, to hook-ups with frenzied hormone-crazed participants, to fellow members of banned soul-sucking fraternities, the pace is held to the predatorial meter of ‘stalking’—all so clues can be left to digest in a dizzying acidic brew of sex, avarice, and alcohol.
SOCIETY OF LIES is a chiller that shrieks of authenticity. The dialogue … the characters … all seem more than real, and this realism helps sell the idea that Ms. Ling wrote an “isn’t the author going to get in trouble for this?” kind of tell-all. We readers would have no trouble believing that it could be true. After all, many college students focused on gaining a leg up on the competition might take drastic action, like sign over their independence for a chance to be part of a charmed inner circle. Once that’s done, can a gifted six-figure job be far behind? But while being privy to secrets can land you a high-paying position … it can also make you the perfect victim for blackmail … as might be demonstrated here.
So if you’re in the market for a twisty-turny, intelligently written mystery, SOCIETY OF LIES might be the one. I know it worked for me. And I’d like to thank Bantam books and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC copy that did just that.
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