Hallie Ephron has certainly absorbed the structural and stylistic elements of crime thrillers. Her new book blends a constantly thickening plotline with an impressive narrative energy, mixed together with a profound psychological study of the story's pregnant protagonist, Ivy Rose. "Never Tell a Lie" opens in a seemingly ideal suburban setting, with husband and wife Ivy and David, onetime high school sweethearts, holding a November yard sale at their Victorian home in close-knit Brush Hills, Mass.
As Ivy haggles with weekend bargain-hunters, a visitor from the past interrupts things. Melinda White introduces herself to Ivy as an old high school classmate; she's someone whom Ivy vaguely remembers as an outcast who had "eaten lunch alone in a corner of the high-school cafeteria and been herded to and from school by her mother." An awkward conversation begins, concluding only when David arrives and unenthusiastically agrees to show Melinda around the house. When Melinda disappears soon thereafter, the police start by questioning Ivy and David about their long-forgotten classmate.
