The Practice of Deceit

At first sound, this mystery seems to be told by a hard-boiled detective of old. Richard Poe's subtle accent and edgy delivery give protagonist Eric Lavender an attitude. Strangely enough, rather than being the one solving crimes, Lavender is the alleged perpetrator. This fast-paced, engrossing novel is performed with confidence and skill. Poe makes the protagonist both sympathetic and coolly real. The story contains just enough description to hold the listener's imagination and enough snappy dialogue to move the action along. This audiobook gives dimension to the genre of suspense novels--adding thought-provoking contemporary issues to a traditional mystery. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

May 2, 2005
Eric Lavender, a 40-something Manhattan therapist, transforms from hard-core bachelor to blissed-out family man then alleged felon in Benedict's new psychological thriller (after Almost
). Soon after Eric falls for Colleen O'Brien Golden, strawberry blonde Scarsdale divorce lawyer and single mom, and her toddler, Zoe, an unplanned pregnancy precipitates marriage and his relocation to the suburbs, where much to his surprise, he finds contentment in domesticity. But Eric's creeping suspicions that Colleen—"with her milky breasts... and her blazing feminist ideals to help women and children suffering at the hands of so many deadbeat dads"—is not the woman she seems put an end to their idyll after a few years. The story about her first husband doesn't add up, and it turns out that her book, Your Fair Share! Women and Divorce,
was ghostwritten. On top of this shaky foundation of trust, Eric and Colleen encounter a disastrous professional conflict of interest—he unwittingly takes a client whose wife has hired Colleen as her divorce lawyer. The upshot: Eric finds himself cuffed, jailed and falsely accused of molesting Zoe. This intelligently written and briskly plotted update on the femme fatale story makes an absorbing beach read.