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[/amazon_link]Title : Lake of Tears
Author : Mary Logue
Genre : Mystery
Publisher : Tyrus Books
Pages: 208
Publish Date : January 1st, 2014
Source : Netgalley / Publisher ARC
Rating : 3/5
Lake of Tears is the 9th book of the Claire Watkins series. In this, Deputy Sheriff Watkins takes over temporarily as Sheriff of the small town of Fort St. Antoine, Wisconsin, as her boss Sheriff Talbot goes in for an emergency heart bypass procedure. It’s been an easy summer thus far and Sheriff Watkins isn’t expecting it to change anytime soon. However when a mock ceremonial Norwegian boat burning celebration goes awry and a young woman’s bones are recovered from the ashes the next morning, Claire has a murder investigation on her hands. Claire is further perturbed when she learns that her teenaged daughter Meg is dating one of her own recently hired Deputies, the relatively older Afghanistan veteran Andrew Stickler. She worries even more when it is revealed that Stickler is the ex-boyfriend of the murdered woman.
This is a murder mystery simply, sparely told. I liked the characters in “Lake of Tears” especially Sheriff Claire Watkins, who is a woman with more than her fair share of common sense and equanimity; I can quite easily see her being played by Patricia Clarkson in a movie version. The author seems comfortable with the characters in the book, and developed them quite realistically. They all seemed very grounded, and ensconced in their lives, even the suspicious ex-boyfriend seems to have almost found his groove.
I did like “Lake of Tears”, but for a murder mystery this was a little placid. The mystery itself was not too complicated, and the book’s non-bombastic plot was underwhelming. It might be that I am used to mysteries, even cozy, small-town mysteries with some intrigue, a few red herrings, and plot twists, so this book’s predictable plot line left me wanting.
I haven’t read the other books in the series, but that didn’t seem to make any difference as this book stood alone quite well, no back references or past events that seemed to bleed through here. Although it wasn’t your fast-paced, effusive murder mystery, “Lake of Tears” was still a decent read.
