Some questions don't have answers. In The Lie Detector, the Artisan's Journal and the Infinite Spiral -- Robert Lovinger's fourth novel -- Donovan Patel is one of the nation's leading private investigators. Corporations and governments call on her to expose deception and fraud. She's a celebrity, giving interviews on TV and delivering TED talks and highly paid lectures. She teaches a course at New York University, has coached poker players on how to read opponents, and even had a character in a movie modeled after her. She is supremely self-assured. But when she learns that someone she investigated has committed suicide, her confidence is shattered by the possibility she made a mistake.
The Lie Detector, the Artisan's Journal and the Infinite Spiral is a tale of mystery and revelation; of a remarkable near-death experience and a terrorist plot against the nation's infrastructure. There's a shocking, unexplained vision, a nobleman's broken heart in sixteenth-century France, and a long-ago promise finally kept. Oh, and a barbershop where everybody knows your name.