The Lake House

The Lake House by Kate Morton.  I LOVE this book.  It ranks right up there on my all time favorite list.  I bought this book months ago and it has been sitting in the bag on a chair in my bedroom.  I'm not sure why I left it for so long:  I've been reading several series books?  I've been busy?  I am just not sure.  I'll say now that I was saving it.  I certainly was savoring it.  At one point with about 50 pages to go, I put it aside.  I didn't want to finish.  I didn't want it to end; however, I did want to get some answers.

One of the things I love about Kate Morton is that she knows how to keep a secret.  She can keep her readers in suspense until the very end.  But, the really very clever thing is that early on she reveals the true story.  She just keeps giving plausible alternatives until the reader is not sure who or what to believe.  By the end, and I mean the very end, the reader is surprised.  Perhaps surprised because he knew it all along or perhaps surprised because it didn't seem likely.  Either way by the conclusion everything is neatly brought together in ways that seemed impossible.

There are two stories moving through the book.  The first is the story of Alice Edevane and her family who live at the lake house pre-World War II.  In 1933 at a midsummer party held at their home, Alice's baby brother disappears.  Through a masterful arrangement of flashbacks and flash forwards gradually the facts come out.  Family history, tensions, worries are revealed all contributing to the crime.  

Meanwhile there is a story of Detective Constable Sadie Sparrow who is on forced leave from her job in London.  She comes to Cornwall for a rest at the home of her grandfather who raised her.  She is in trouble because she has become too close to a case of a mother who disappeared leaving her baby home alone.  Sadie can't let the case rest.  There must be an explanation for the mother's disappearance.  There must be foul play.

The stories converge when Sadie discovers the lake house deserted and in disrepair while jogging from her grandfather's cottage.  Curiosity leads her to the mystery surrounding the Edevane family giving Sadie a new case and a distraction from her troubles.  Chapters of her investigations in 2003 are mixed among the chapters during Alice's youth and the story shifts just as the reader begins to understand.

With the help of Sadie's grandfather, an elderly policeman from the original investigation, and Alice Edevane herself, Sadie is able to find the truth in both of her cases.  Some might say the ending is too perfect, but fairy tales play and important part in the story, so why not happily ever after?

I love this book and I love this author.  Unfortunately, she only has four other books for me to read. Should I put them off to extend my pleasure?