whitneydaniell

by: Riley Sager
published: Jun 21, 2022
genre: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction
369 Pages, Paperback
GoodReads Link

Casey Fletcher… what can I say? She really got on my last nerve for about 99% of this book. Casey is a disgraced actor after the drowning death of her husband, she embarks on an alcohol-induced speeding train that the whole world watches crash and burn. Her life becomes nothing more than tabloid gossip. In an effort to get her away from the cameras of the paparazzi (and off the booze), her mother – a famed and loved actor – sends her off to their lake house in Vermont. Secluded and quiet this time of year, as most of her neighbors have returned back to their fall/winter homes, this should be a place where Casey can relax, unwind, deal with her shit, and come down off her drinking binge… but NOPE. Why would she ever do that?

While at the lake house on Lake Greene – a lake named for her great great grandfather (I might be one or two “greats” off) – Casey meets the Royces: Katherine, the former model, and Tom, the tech innovator and app creator. Casey actually saves Katherine from drowning in the lake! I guess saving a life forever binds you to that person because, after that chance encounter, and just a few other conversations, Casey becomes OBSESSED with Katherine. She will not leave her or her husband alone.

In addition to Casey’s obsession with Katherine, there is a background story about three young women who went missing from the nearby town. This happens in the past but the thread of these missing women is somehow tied to Lake Greene.

The story is told from Casey’s point of view and jumps between the “before” and “now” timelines. The “before” is the story leading up to the “now” so it’s not really a huge timeline jump and around the 80% mark of the book, both timelines come together in the “now”. There are also a few other characters that cause you to question your reality:

• Tom Royce – Katherine’s husband. He is off-putting, or “intense” as described by Casey’s cousin, Marnie. While not the most strange man on the lake, he doesn’t have any redeeming qualities.
• Boone Conrad – a handyman and former, police officer who is doing some work at the houses on the lake. He is working and staying at a vacant house owned by Casey’s next-door neighbor. Boone has a history of his own that he’s running from and it doesn’t help that he sticks out like a sore thumb at Lake Greene.
• Eli Wiliams – a year-round resident of Lake Greene and a neighbor of the Royces, on the other side of the lake from Casey. He is a strange bird and knows way too much about the lake shivers.
• Detective Wilma Anson – she is an outlier, could be up to something, could not be. I definitely questioned my judgment when it came to her.

I loved that there were not 50-leven characters around this town trying to throw you off, that tends to happen in some of these mysteries. With this story, all the characters are well fleshed out and their development is on every page – you can do that when there are only a few core characters. In this case, there is only Casey, Boone, Katherine, and Tom – that’s it for the main characters. The others offer structure and progression to the story but, are not “main”.

The book is also written very well. Chapters are not too long, some are actually short, just a page or two. The “twist” in the plot did throw me for a loop, I was not expecting that however, once I got into it, somehow I felt like I had read the book before. At about the 289 page, I felt like I had read this story or maybe this was a film I had seen – it was weird but, I knew exactly what we coming and how it was going to end. IDK *shrugs*. Overall, I liked the story, characters, and plot. Casey is a mess and her mess frustrated me the entire time, I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her.

Anyway, this is long enough. Read it.