Jacqueline Faber’s dazzling debut metaphorically resembles Jackson Pollock art: swirling scenes and names jumbled onto pages. Each seemingly insignificant scene and name is a clue for astute mystery aficionados.

Tenure hinges on Professor Neil Weber writing a “dissertation on bystander apathy,” inspired by witnessing a woman drown when he was six. Including Neil, no one tried to save her. “Writing” is a euphemism for monolithic writer’s block. Not a word has been composed, but then he notices a poster of missing student Lucia Vanotti. “Lucia had become a stand-in for everything that had gone wrong in my life.” Neil assuages his personal bystander guilt by investigating, which places him in the suspect seat.

"THE DEPARTMENT is over-the-top brilliant and intellectually intriguing, with a concussion-grenade conclusion. It is sure to earn an Anthony Award nomination, likely the Big Kahuna: Best First Novel."

Neil’s dumpy apartment “was a true testament to how far I’d fallen,” alongside his failed marriage with Phaedra Lewis. Both are philosophy professors at the same campus. Since philosophy is their gig, Phaedra writes, “[T]he work of mourning is always doomed to fail. One is marked by the loss of the other from the outset. There is no getting over loss. Loss is the condition of existence.” Neil fixates on visions of Phaedra, including her standing on a purple carpet of jacaranda blossoms in New Jersey.

The reader is volleyed between Neil and Lucia’s narration, then and now. Lucia is a complex character plagued by trauma, shame, guilt and ongoing self-doubt. She is a developed character with the insight of one who is twice her 20 years. The reader yearns to comfort her, though she projects a shield of defiance. Each character has strength and vulnerable weakness churning like the Pollock analogy.

This classic whodunit/whydunit with a stunning finale is also a tragic tale of loss and failed attempts at redemption. The reader becomes a student in the Philosophy department, or perhaps a guinea pig to be examined.

THE DEPARTMENT is over-the-top brilliant and intellectually intriguing, with a concussion-grenade conclusion. It is sure to earn an Anthony Award nomination, likely the Big Kahuna: Best First Novel.