Call Me Evie

A bad, bad thing has happened to 17-year-old Kate Bennet, the narrator of Australian author Pomare’s outstanding debut, with even worse looming. Feisty Kate, who’s from Melbourne, is trying to flee from a controlling older man she calls Jim, who is keeping her a virtual prisoner in a rural New Zealand hideout, ostensibly for her own good—which is also why he claims he’s shaving her head as a disguise and insisting she go by the new name of Evie. It’s clear the pair’s on the run, but from whom? And why? As Kate starts to spin her story, shifting between before she fell into Jim’s clutches and afterward, she tries to piece together what happened that traumatic night and figure out the true nature of Jim’s game—and how she can finally escape. Although Pomare cheats a little toward the end, introducing two new voices to reveal what Kate can’t or won’t, the final pages stun with their gallows-drop plot surprises. Almost nothing will turn out as it initially appears in this devastating novel of psychological suspense. (Mar.)