Review: The Dark Lake (Sarah Bailey)

4/5 stars 

Trigger warnings: miscarriage, suicide, kidnapping, statutory rape. This is a police procedural so there is mention of a few past cases that don’t go into too much detail, including violence to children, domestic violence, and attempted rape.

Synopsis: Young Detective Gemma Woodstock is sucked back into dealing with her adolescent demons when her former classmate, a teacher at the school they both attended together, is found dead. Gemma and her partner (and lover) Felix investigate the case from all angles, trying to determine who would have motive to kill a beautiful young woman that everyone seemed to adore. In addition to working the case, Gemma must deal with her emotions that begin to resurface a decade after the dead woman ripped apart Gemma’s world.

***

I wanted to give this book three stars because it took so long to ramp up, but ultimately I felt like the back half of the book was so compelling that it made up for the slow start. The case is difficult from the start – no one saw anything, and no one knows anything. Rosalind is a mystery even to those closest to her – not that many people were close to her at all. Her father and brothers are strangely removed, her coworkers find her charming but know nothing about her personal life, and there doesn’t seem to be a boyfriend (or girlfriend) in the picture. It was pretty fascinating to watch Gemma and Felix work with their dearth of clues to figure out truths that seem to arise from nothing.

Getting to know Gemma was a little difficult. Her emotions are hard to decipher. I was frustrated by her alternating indifference and outright hostility towards her boyfriend, Scott, and her apparent devotion to Felix that somehow didn’t merit any kind of discussion on where exactly they were going with their relationship. I wasn’t even totally sure of her feelings for her child for most of the book – he seems more like a burden or extra task to her most of the time.

Gemma also carries around a lot of baggage from her high school days, comparing the men in her life to her teenage boyfriend Jacob, who killed himself when he was 17-years-old. Eventually we come to understand why this weighs so heavily on her, but it got a little tiresome to read about her seemingly living exclusively in the past without understanding that.

Despite the slow start, I was really engaged with this book in the end and I’m glad I decided to see it through. Though the author wraps up things nicely in the end that could leave this as a standalone, it seems like her intention is to start a series with Gemma as the main character. I think I would be interested in reading more books with Gem as the lead, even though I generally don’t read police procedurals or these kinds of series. Sarah Bailey is a good writer and I think she can bring us a lot more interesting reads.

I received this book as my pick for October via Book of the Month.