Sarah Bailey | THE DARK LAKE

Plot:

The lead homicide investigator in a rural town, Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock is deeply unnerved when a high school classmate is found strangled, her body floating in a lake. And not just any classmate, but Rosalind Ryan, whose beauty and inscrutability exerted a magnetic pull on Smithson High School, first during Rosalind's student years and then again when she returned to teach drama. 

As much as Rosalind's life was a mystery to Gemma when they were students together, her death presents even more of a puzzle. What made Rosalind quit her teaching job in Sydney and return to her hometown? Why did she live in a small, run-down apartment when her father was one of the town's richest men? And despite her many admirers, did anyone in the town truly know her?

Review:

This novel is dark and brutal with an amazing opening scene. I really enjoyed how Bailey just went for it and literally started this novel off with a dead body. No fluff or filler before we just get to the nitty gritty. This novel is multi-layered and full of characters ranging from our heroine, Gemma Woodstock down to the woman who makes the coffee at the local coffee shop. 

With an abundance of characters, some of which act as our narrators, I was pleasantly surprised with how well our main characters were written. They are flawed, deceptive, and mentally and emotionally too far gone. However, with how well the main characters were written, I was honestly confused more than I should have been between all of the characters that were mentioned or showed up for no reason at all. With a novel that has both past and present scenes and also multiple plots, it was really hard for me to keep track of who was who and wonder if they would matter in the end. 

While I enjoyed the past and present scenes as I felt that they really set up for a shocking ending, my only concern was how many different plots and subplots were going on with this one. While it kept the novel interesting as I had so many different things I was wondering, I often felt myself driving away from the main concern that this is in fact a psychological murder mystery and when Rosalind Ryan's name was mentioned, I would stop and have an "aha!" moment as her death is why we are here in the first place. 

This novel was a lot to take in, but I really did enjoy it. The imagery and the plot were both fantastic, the characters were really effective, and the ending was twisted and dark. If it hadn't been for the novel having what I believed was just too much going on and if we could have narrowed the character list down a little, this would have been a higher rating for me. With that being said, I still loved so much of this and I will definitely check out Sarah Bailey's next one.

*Special thanks to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 3.5/5