Book World: A bizarre, arresting mystery you won't be able to put down Joan Frank, The Washington Post March 9, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail By Sara Davis - - - Is "The Scapegoat," Sara Davis' debut novel, in fact a "propulsive and destabilizing literary mystery," per its back-cover blurb? It is - and then some. Reading this bizarre, arresting tale, you may not always feel clear about what you are tracking - but you'll absolutely want to track it. The novel's power and steady control manifest in its voice: that of an eerily inward, single male, perhaps in his 30s, who lives monkishly, working at a Stanford-like university in a fog-veiled setting (California's Bay Area). From the start this nameless narrator exudes shyness, loneliness and social ineptitude; monotony makes him hyper-watchful. But soon his observations begin to disturb and puzzle us. When a colleague named Kirstie (presumably youngish and attractive, though it's never stated) enters the department's break room after her run, the narrator is tensely vigilant.