Starvation Lake by Brian Gruley (Book Review)

Title: Starvation Lake
Author: Bryan Gruley

My synopsis: Gus Carpenter, reporter for the Detroit Times -- wait, he used to be a reporter in Detroit.  That was before a source for one of his stories - a big story that had garnered a lot of attention -- turned out to be getting his information illegally.  It ended up costing Gus his job, but he still refused to give up the source's name.  So he returned to Starvation Lake, Michigan and the newspaper that had fostered his desire to become a reporter.

Gus had left Starvation Lake vowing to make something of himself.  He was trying to make up for the goal he missed that cost the River Rats, the local hockey team, the State Championship. Instead, he was back in Starvation Lake working on the local paper as editor.  Even though years had passed, memories are long in a small town and people still blamed him for the lost championship. It had seemed to jinx the River Rats, as they had never come that close to the state championship again.  Then when their coach, Jack Blackburn drowned in a snowmobile accident, dreams of the championship died with him.

Only now, Coach Blackburn's snowmobile had washed ashore on Walleye Lake, not Starvation Lake where he had gone down -- and there wasssome evidence that made it look like it wasn't an accident at all. As Gus tries to get to the bottom of it, he is thwarted at every turn.  Even his mother seems to know more than he does.  As everything Gus believed growing up begins to unravel -- the present isn't giving him a strong foundation either.  Battling time trying to resolve the Detroit fiasco, while trying to connect the dots in his past, Gus is going to have to grow up and realize that the heroes from his childhood were tarnished and that the friends he left behind in Starvation Lake grew up long before he did.

My thoughts:  I loved the way this book was written.  Not in the flashy cliff hanger style, but in the comfortable pace of a small town, moving the story along at a natural pace.  As I neared the ending, I started to put the pieces together, but would never have guessed when I began the book that it would take the twists and turns it did.

Mr. Gruley has a second book coming out in this Starvation Lake Mystery series on Aug 3 called The Hanging Tree.  Keep a watch out for my review later this month!

Starvation Lake
Publisher/Publication Date: Touchstone, March 2009
ISBN: 978-1416563624
370 pages