The House Across the Lake; Razzmatazz

 

"The House Across the Lake" by Riley Sager was pretty good. 

Casey Fletcher's life has been spiraling out of control ever since her husband, Len, drowned at their summer home at Lake Greene. When she gets fired from her acting job for showing up drunk, her mother packs her off to the lake to sober up. It doesn't work--one of Casey's neighbors brings her alcohol, so Casey spends her days drinking into oblivion. One day she notices a body floating out in the middle of the lake and takes her boat out and rescues Katherine, a former model who is now married to a tech wizard. They just bought a house on the lake. Casey also meets another new neighbor: Boone, who's doing some handyman work on one of the houses while the occupants are at their winter home. 

Casey meets Katherine's husband Tom, and right away she senses all is not right in their marriage. Katherine seems afraid of Tom, and the fact that she's a strong swimmer and almost drowned seems suspicious, especially when Katherine tells her that her whole body just seemed to stop working in the middle of the lake. When she passes out again while they're enjoying a glass of wine, Casey decides to keep an eye on Katherine and Tom's house. She has Len's birding binoculars, and she spends her days drinking and spying on her neighbors. Totally healthy behavior.

As usual, there were a lot of twists and red herrings. I smugly thought I had it figured out about 2/3 of the way through, but I was very wrong. 

I like the first book, "Noir", quite a bit, so I was looking forward to this follow up. It was okay but not great. Sammy and Stilton (the Cheese, but don't call her that to her face) are still seeing each other. There's a new head of Vice in town named Dunne and he's cracking down on the drag queen and lesbian bars in town. A couple of folks get murdered and the police don't seem interested in solving the case so Sammy steps in. 

There was an involved backstory with Moo Shoes uncle Ho and how he came over from China. Some of the side characters got more developed. 

I don't know, it just seemed a bit forced whereas "Noir" didn't.