Mystery novels can be hit or miss. Rarely have I found one of quality, and it is even more rare that I find one that blows me out of the water. The intricacies of Bryan Gruley’s “Starvation Lake” hooked me right at the beginning, and I couldn’t put the book down until I discovered the ultimate plot twist of the mystery.
One of the hardest things about reviewing this book is not revealing the ending. After 150 pages, I would not have guessed the shocking revelation. For that I must applaud Gruley for keeping his mystery opaque, not translucent. A little background of the story is necessary, so here’s what I can tell you.
The main character is Gus Carpenter. He’s a journalist working for his hometown newspaper in Starvation Lake, Mich. after suddenly leaving his prestigious job at the Detroit Times. A snowmobile owned by the town’s famous hockey coach, Jack Blackburn, washes up on the shores of a nearby lake, Walleye. The kicker is that Blackburn and his snowmobile went down in the watery depths of Starvation Lake. Questions are raised, the local sheriff’s department investigates and secrets of the past are dredged up.
Not much to go on, I know, but the more I say, the more likely you are to figure out where the story is going.
Gruley is a new author on the shelves in bookstores, and he’s making a large splash with his first novel “Starvation Lake.” His writing skills may not rival those of bestseller Stephen King, but Gruley has talent. He embeds smaller mysteries in the larger one, keeping a reader’s interest until the final tell all.
The characters he has created could be everyday people one meets on the street. I love the nuances and struggles all the characters go through. The writing catches the reader’s attention, but it’s the story content that keeps you reading.
“Starvation Lake” is an intriguing novel that really delves into the small town mentality. Everybody in the story, from Gus to the local bigfoot hunter Perlmutter, has a secret or two. Small town people enjoy gossiping, so it’s important to keep one’s mouth shut before the whole town knows the inner-most demons one is carrying around. Here’s the kicker: these small town folks are happy keeping their secrets. Nobody wants to stir up the muck at the bottom of the lake, so to speak.
One of the best examples of not wanting to stir the muck stirring is in the running of the daily newspaper, the Pilot, of Starvation Lake. Owned by a larger company, the Pilot is supposed to be a “family” newspaper full of stories about the high school’s wrestling match or the new Marina. The big guys upstairs immediately pull any stories dealing with sex scandals, murder or fraud in the town. It’s funny to read this because, being from a Chicago suburb, it’s expected to read controversial news of that caliber.
Gus is constantly fighting to pull away from the small town mentality. As the editor of the Pilot, he’s caught between a rock and a hard place: to run a story by the big guys first or just say to hell with them.
At times I wanted to yell at Gus, to tell him that he should run stories because they were true, and to not care if the muck gets stirred.
This is a great book for anybody and I think it will help people, especially all of the Chicagolanders on campus, to understand how small towns work and why they like to keep low profiles, pretending everything is dandy. Also, the book addresses a very serious issue that lies at the core of the whole mystery.
To find out more, go to the local bookstore and order a copy. “Starvation Lake” is worth it.
~Nepenthe
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