House of a Thousand Lies

At the start of Davis’s rambling debut, Diana Wolf, who lives with her rock star husband at their Leiper’s Fork, Tenn., estate, impulsively hires cartographer Kerry Perkins to survey the property. During Kerry’s first night on the job, he trips over a skull and notices a carving of two wolves etched into its forehead. Diana sees the skull and recognizes the wolves as a symbol with which her two 20ish artist sons used to sign their paintings, but to protect them, she doesn’t share this revelation. Kerry senses that Diana is lying about the carving, and his doubts lead him to Panaggiotis “Pink” Gopsikopolis, a cyber genius who’s been obsessively stalking the Wolf family for 12 years. As Kerry and Pink dig deeper, they discover horrifying secrets of abuse and murder. Frequent jumps in time and shifts of perspectives make the plot difficult to follow. Readers have no hero to root for, and the action builds to a confusing, unsatisfying conclusion. Fans of domestic horror thrillers can safely take a pass. Agent: Sam Farkas, Jill Grinberg Literary Management. (Aug.)