"Death on the Lake" by Jo Allen

Twin 18-year-old boys awaken on a sailboat in a lake in Cumbria. They’ve had something of a drunken, drugged spree with a girl working at a local marina. When they can’t find the girl, they look overboard. And there her body is, floating beneath the surface. Their response: avoid the wrath of their father and hide the body. 

The body is eventually found, and it looks to the police and everyone else concerned that it’s an accidental drowning. That is, except for the girl’s clothes folded neatly and hidden from view. Would a drunken girl actually do that, when she was known for keeping a messy room?

 

Jo Allen

There’s a second death that looks natural or accidental, but Detective Chief Inspector Jude Satterthwaite isn’t convinced. And then there’s an outright murder. Everything seems to point in the direction of the 18-year-old twins’ family, but Satterthwaite is stopped by his book. It seems the paterfamilias is being investigated for financial fraud, and nothing can be done to alarm the man or make his suspicious.

 

Death on the Lake is the fifth DCI Jude Satterthwaite mystery novel by British author Jo Allen. Full of unexpected twists and turns, the story moves rapidly to a rather dramatic conclusion. Allen also does a nice job of interweaving the main characters personal stories (that is, love lives) into the major movement of the novel.

 

Allen is a native of Wolverhampton, England, and has graduate and postgraduate degrees in geography and earth science. After a career as an economic consultant, she began writing short stories, romance, and romantic suspense under the pen name of Jennifer Young. She began writing the DCI Satterthwaite crime novels in 2017.  

 

Related:

 

Death by Dark Waters by Jo Allen.

 

Death at Eden’s End by Jo Allen. 

 

Death on Coffin Lane by Jo Allen.

 

Death at Rainbow Cottage by Jo Allen.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Tiny Acts of Analog Resistance – Seth Haines at Life Examined. 

 

The repaganization of the West – Ed West at Wrong Side of History.

Le Republique’s Last, Best Hope – Christophe Guilluy at The Free Press.

 

Light and Shadows at Franklin Battlefield – Chris Heisey at Emerging Civil War.