LIARS

The placid daily routine in tiny Alder Creek, California, flies apart when an old prospector's house is first rifled, then burnt down—and when teenager Sam Thompson discovers both a talent for dowsing and an apparently related ability to tell when people are lying. Sam finds that everyone he talks to— schoolmates, neighbors, even his own father—is hiding something. Was the fire deliberate or accidental? Why has the atmosphere in town become so tense? Suspense mounts as events move to a climax: Sam is menaced by a hooded gunman and later gets a threatening phone call; another fire is set; and he catches Dr. Vincent, a prominent local citizen, prowling through his house. Finally, Dr. Vincent confesses to the dirty deeds—he'd been desperately trying to destroy an incriminating photograph of his private marijuana patch—and Sam learns that not all lies arise from evil motives. Oddly, Sam's ESP plays no major role in resolving this taut, well-constructed mystery. (Fiction. 12-15)