Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock is unnerved when a high school classmate is found strangled, her body floating in a lake. But Rosalind Ryan wasn't just any classmate. She was the most beautiful, the most enigmatic, the one student who exerted a magnetic pull on Smithson High School.
Gemma becomes obsessed with finding Rosalind's killer. What made her leave her teaching job in Sydney to return to her hometown? Why did she live in a decrepit apartment when her father was one of the town's richest men? And despite the endless number of her admirers, did anyone truly know her?
Gemma has to find answers to these questions in order to find Rosalind's killer while she deals with her own dangerous secrets.
Sarah Bailey has written a compelling story that sucked me right in. In no time at all, I had to know the answers to all the questions Bailey raised, two of which are just what happened between Gemma and Rosalind when they were in high school? And who disliked Rosalind enough to kill her now?
It's amazing that I did find The Dark Lake so compelling because I didn't like any of the characters. The character I disliked the most was Gemma herself. I had to keep reminding myself that she was only twenty-eight and emotionally still a child. There are some traumas that occur during childhood that make children grow up quickly. There are others that stunt the child's emotional growth, and Gemma is one of these people. I deduced why she was behaving the way she was, but all her angst was too much for me. To Gemma, her teenage years were absolute perfection and she does everything she possibly can to ensure that she can't have perfection now. Oh. So. Tiresome. (And, oh, if only I could've dredged up some sympathy for her.)
The Dark Lake is a very well-written story with a smooth, fast pace and a mystery that is worth solving. However, if you're the type of reader who must have at least one character you can like and trust, this may not be the book for you.
The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey
eISBN: 9781538759912
Grand Central Publishing © 2017
eBook, 401 pages
Police Procedural, #1 Gemma Woodstock mystery
Rating: B+
Source: Purchased from Amazon.
It does sound like an interesting premise, Cathy. And you make a good point about the characters, too. It takes a skilled author to make you care about a story if you don't like the characters. Hmm...not sure I would go for Gemma's angst, either. Still, it sounds like a solid story.
ReplyDeleteIt is a solid story, and Bailey is talented to keep me reading when I didn't care about the characters!
DeleteI read this one earlier this year and felt much the same as you about Gemma. I do think that I ended up liking her more than you by the end. In any case, I'm planning on reading the second book in the series which will come out in the spring, I think. The mystery was a good one.
ReplyDeleteLately I just don't have the patience for characters that I want to knock some sense into. I think I'm turning into an award-winning curmudgeon...
DeleteI definitely need to care about the characters in the books I read, and I've run into several books lately where that is impossible. I skim large sections of the books just to follow the plot to completion, but often I wish the characters would just die to put themselves and me out of our misery.
ReplyDeleteCan I ever identify with that feeling, Teresa! I've found that many of the current flavor-of-the-month "domestic thrillers" have characters like that, which is why I'm avoiding that subgenre like the plague.
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