Mysteries and suspense are my favorite book genre and I enjoy the entire spectrum of subgenres in this category. I had been reading a string of cozies the past few months. Very enjoyable and I liked them all. I was starting to get a little tired of the silliness and cuteness that some of these books have so i wanted a book with a little more oomph! Found it in CEMETERY LAKE by Paul Cleave. What a great tale of suspense and an intriguing plot with plenty of twists. The story is set in Christchurch New Zealand where the author lives and is a place I usually ***ociate with beautiful scenery, sheep and Lord of the Rings movies. The story opens with Theo Tate, a private detective who was let go from the police force after his wife and daughter were involved in a tragic car accident caused by a drunk driver. Tate is present at the graveside of an exhumation for a case he is working on and when the coffin is opened the person who was supposed to be buried there was not inside. Instead a young woman who was obviously a murder victim of an unsolved case was in the coffin and Tate recognized her as a girl who had been killed two years before. Suddenly there were bodies popping up from the lake nearby and Tate and the police suspect there could be more bodies buried where the bodies in the lake should have been. Suspicion falls on the caretaker and his son but quickly changes and Tate soon finds himself as suspect. He continues to probe the case on his own in order to clear his name. CEMETERY LAKE is an excellent contemporary noire. There are enough surprises and plot twists to keep a person guessing. There is depth to the story and it makes you wonder what the fine line of good and evil can be and at what lengths a person will go to seek justice and find themselves crossing the line.
