Book Review: Summit Lake

Summit Lake

For a first-time author, Charlie Donlea gets quite a lot of things right with Summit Lake. It has the atmosphere, an interesting backstory and whatnot, what it lacks is a sense of urgency. Miami-based investigative reporter Kelsey Castle, fresh from a traumatic personal experience, is packed off by her fatherly boss to a picturesque North Carolina town by the name of Summit Lake to cover what's a brutal murder of a beautiful first-year law student Becca Eckersley at her parents' vacation home. As she begins to snoop around for details, she is surprised to find the lack of any material progress in the police investigation, and more than anything, the cops' attempts at suppressing the lurid savagery perpetrated on Becca makes her further determined to get to the bottom of it all.

And does she, with the help of a sympathetic surgeon Peter (cue in the blooming romance) and a coffee shop owner Rae, who doles out inspirational platitudes by the dozen and for no reason. To start off, the case isn't that much of a labyrinthine puzzle, yet Donlea manages to stage an elaborate red herring, resulting in a climactic twist that frankly I didn't see coming. (I am ashamed to have not spotted it myself, but hey remember what Sherlock Holmes said?). That having said, the whole investigative angle feels oddly forced, devoid of logic (If it was so easy for Kelsey to unravel the mystery, why not let the cops do it?) and sub-par when juxtaposed against the events leading up to Becca's death, which are intriguing and often suspenseful. Nor could I really invest myself in the character of Kelsey (as I could with Becca and her clique) and her personal predicament, which only evokes frustration rather than empathising with her. A promising thriller that could have worked even better as a linear narrative, Summit Lake is easily unputdownable. Had only Donlea done away with Kelsey and let the cops take over!