Customer Reviews

Hemlock Lake (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are few small towns left in the country, places where generations of families have occupied the same homes and known each other intimately, with few things, if any, changing. Fictional Hemlock Lake in the Catskill Mountains, a short distance from New York City, is one such community until one very elderly inhabitant dies, and a distant relative sells off the homestead to a developer who razes the house and apple orchard and begins to build several homes for "outsiders."

Locals, of course, resent the intrusion, which will upset the time-honored traditions of the community. Then threatening letters, graffiti and minor annoyances erupt to hinder the progress of the development. When that doesn't work, attempts to stall the builder escalate to arson and even murder. Dan Stone is a sergeant in the sheriff's department who grew up in Hemlock Lake. He left some months previously after his wife drowned on the lake and his brother committed suicide. The sheriff asks Dan to return to his family home and try to find the arsonist.

Ostensibly the novel is the mystery of who the perpetrator is and the difficulty Dan has in discovering his identity. But more importantly, this is the story about people, and especially Dan's relationship with those he grew up with and their attitudes about those who chose to leave Hemlock Lake instead of staying put. On another level, it is a deep look into the interconnections between the residents, as well as Dan's learning more about himself and his wants and needs. Written with a sharp eye on small town America and how the past infringes on the future, the book is highly recommended.

In the Catskill Mountains is isolated Hemlock Lake. The locals keep developers out, but recently a long time resident took the money. Now a developer and the natives are at war with vandalism occurring.

Sheriff North sends Police Sergeant Dan Stone to Hemlock Lake to investigate the crimes as he is from the area and has a better chance of obtaining information from the closed-mouth natives. He has doubts as he has been away since the tragedy of his wife Susanna drowning, his brother Nat committing suicide and his father mentally collapsing from the tragedies. As the vandal turns to arson and murder, Stone is pulled between the past and the future as he begins to believe someone he has known for years is behind the deadly felonies.

Aptly titled Hemlock Lake is a strong regional police procedural. Because he was away, Stone is considered a traitorous outsider by the locals. He does not disagree as he never wanted to come home but his wife persuaded him that his family needed them; after she died he never wanted to come home, but his boss persuaded him that the department needed him. Duty bound but filled with guilt, Dan increasingly believes he will bring in a friend once he solves the case. Though his flashbacks become intrusive and repetitive with too much detail, Carolyn J. Rose provides an entertaining character driven thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Rich in characterization and atmosphere, Carolyn J Rose writes a page-turner that sweeps the reader into the life of Sergeant Dan Stone, who returns home to the Sleepy Hollow-like town in the Catskills, where his wife has drowned and where his brother killed himself after he tried but failed to save her.

Arson, murder, and the mysterious appearances of stone cairns lead Stone to a list of suspects that includes those he knows well and an outsider, a woman who helps him break the stranglehold of his past but who has also murdered a man.

Hemlock Lake is so well written, I can't wait to read it again, and I'm eager to read the next novel in the series. Rose captures the noir undercurrent of townspeople who lay claim to their land, deciding who goes, who stays, and who dies, based on the birthright of generations before them.

As a former teacher of a "Novel Writing Boot Camp," professional fiction book editor, and TV news producer who saw gritty real-life crimes and knows police procedure, Carolyn J. Rose is ideally suited for writing in the mystery genre. She is also the co-author of comic mystery Devil's Harbor series set on the Oregon coast, with a large cast of memorable characters in The Big Grabowski and Sometimes A Great Commotion.

For full disclosure, I know Carolyn J. Rose well--as a friend and as a colleague/editor I greatly admire.

A rattlesnake, a missing shotgun, a phantom in the mountains and a small town revolt are some of the ingredients in this Carolyn J. Rose novel. Add to that an accidental death, followed by a suicide, fires set by arson, graffiti on the walls of newly constructed lake homes, a mysterious dark-skinned woman and small, carefully crafted stone mounds that magically appear in the moonlight. Mix these together and you have a heart-thumping, mind boggling, suspense filled ride that careens off the logging roads of the Catskill Mountains into a book that defies you to put it down. Who wants to kill Sergeant Dan Stone? Who doesn't want to kill him becomes more the question.

Hemlock Lake is a `walk-in' novel skillfully weaved by its talented author in first person narrative. The reader, through Dan Stone's thoughts and words, is privileged to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of a Catskill Mountains summer. They feel the emotional and physical pain of life-long bitterness, deception and betrayal. Walking with Stone through the pages of Hemlock Lake is an adventure that you won't want to miss!

I actually only started with the sample of this book intending to see if it was worth my time to download. Two days later I'd bought and finished reading the entire book.

As a mystery, this story is quite good. I suspected who the real killer was quite early on but wouldn't have bet on it at all. Finding out whodunnit in the end didn't come as a complete shock as just enough clues were shared with the reader throughout. However, the journey to finding out who-all-might-have-done-it revealed several twists and surprises not expected.

The thing that ups this story to a 5 star rather than just 4 or 4.5 for me is the story of Dan and his relationships with everyone - himself, his father, his brother, his wife, the locals in the town he grew up in and on and on. Here is a man who has to find himself but doesn't set out on any extraordinary existentialist or spiritual journey to do so. In fact, he's fairly certain he already knows what's what. However as the story unfolds, he finds himself without that ever really becoming the focus of the book or taking away from the main plot. And thank goodness too because sometimes his quick temper and family pride is really foolish (but understandable).

I also love the various secondary characters who are exceptionally well developed. By the end, you kind of feel you know this town.

Finally, I loved the way the author reveals the multi-faceted nature of the locals' hostility towards progress. (POTENTIAL SPOILER) Apart from the usual 'Those McMansions will spoil the tranquility of our quaint little town', we also discover several fears - as it stands, everyone in town is relatively poor, power structures have been established and re-inforced over generations; 'everyone' is happy like this. But when the development and new money comes in, the locals fear that their tattered and patched possessions and homes will suddenly not be good enough, their children will hope for more and want to leave, certain villagers will benefit more and the power structure might shift etc.

This isn't a fluffy book- irreversably bad things will happen to good people. However I highly recommend this book.

The title intrigued me. The cover intrigued me. However, I am not a huge fan of either mysteries or detective stories, so I started Hemlock Lake with at least a wee bit of trepidation. But I gotta tell you, I was more than a tad surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The characters were masterfully developed, and the plot built steadily to a grand slam that I could not have predicted. Carolyn Roses' skill in telling a good old fashioned story, of putting her readers right where she wants them-fighting a physical and an emotional battle with Dan Stone-is remarkable. If you don't usually paw through Amazon's mystery/detective section, do yourself a favor, and try Hemlock Lake. It's a doozie.

Carolyn Rose's "Hemlock Lake" lured me in right away with its swift-moving plot. The characters were sharp, the stakes high, the setting vivid and the suspense solidly there. I lost a lot of sleep the night before finishing this book, because I had to find out whodunit. I look forward to more from this author.

Nancy Peterson Farina --

I grew up in the Catskills, so the setting of Hemlock Lake had an instant appeal for me. Shokan is my hometown, right next to the still existing town of Ashokan. Both towns are small in population, but large in geographical size. Originally, the town of Shokan sprawled in a gorgeous valley in the Town of Olive, Ulster County. Lush farms and tall stands of spruce and (yes!) hemlock thrived in this land of the Esopus Creek. In the first half of the Twentieth Century, New York City's ever-growing and always-thirsty population demanded more water. City agents using society's need against the individual's right to own property, mapped out plans to flood this magnificent area to form the Ashokan Reservoir and subsequently pipe the clean mountain water into the parched mouths of millions of city-dwellers. Some residents gladly sold off their piece of Americana, but others futilely resisted the City's agents. Controversy bubbled and erupted, but eminent domain prevailed. Long-time farmers and homeowners were forced to leave their houses, farms, churches, orchards, and cemeteries, making way for the water that would feed the thirst of millions. After the flooding, the current towns of Shokan, Ashokan, and West Shokan stud the shores of the reservoir, fractured from their former self.

In Hemlock Lake, the theme of modern development forcing change on an existing community is a replica of the story of the Ashokan Reservoir. Change will happen. "Progress" will be made. Hemlock Lake replicates the story of Shokan. Small wonder that Carolyn Rose chose "Ashokan County" as the setting of her mystery. She brings the area to life, establishing the setting as a primary character in her story. Change will happen to Ashokan County and change will happen to her characters. Working with the change ensures success and happiness, for the geography and for the characters.

I moved away from Shokan 45 years ago. While reading Hemlock Lake, I found myself transported back to the land of my childhood. Rose created the land I loved in her words, forever on the pages of this novel. Change happens, yes, but the magic of writing can preserve what we love. Thanks, Carolyn, for taking me down those mountain trails and into the verdant forests of the Catskills.

Hemlock Lake is a fun, thought provoking, page turner of a psychological thriller. I started to read it for technique and got so seduced by the story that I found myself at 2:00 am looking for the power adapter for the Kindle so I could finish it. I was expecting something like the fun cozy mysteries Carolyn J. Rose writes with Mike Nettleton (e.g. The Big Grabowski) but this sole authored story felt more like mainstream mystery fiction with very strong characters, themes of love and loss, and a plot with more twists than an angry rattle snake. This is definitely more serious fare than my usual summer reading, but every bit as entertaining. I think that people are going to be raving about this one for quite a while!

There are fiction genres that challenge me as a writer. Romance, YA, and mystery are really troublesome. For the first two, I believe it is indispensable that the author put himself in the mind frame of the reader. The first readers have graduated from fairy tales like "Cinderella" to more adult fantasies about lust and love. While those elements can be found in other genres, they are the quintessential elements of the romance genre. The second readers, often young and impatient in this computer game world of instant gratification, are looking for adventure and some magic (and perhaps lust and love) at a level they can relate to, not too profound and highly entertaining.

So far I have written thrillers set in the future--sci-fi or techno-thrillers, if you will. The difference between a thriller and a mystery is easy: In a thriller you know who did it, is doing it, or will do it, and most of the time what "it" is (or you think you know all this--authors are prone to throw in some "twists" in their plots). In the mystery you have no idea who did it, or is doing it, or will do it--the author dribbles out the clues along the way and the reader gets his kicks by sleuthing out the guilty party or parties. The thriller tends to have more action; the mystery tends to be more cerebral.

I can't write mysteries. Or maybe I should say I haven't tried yet. It's a very competitive genre (what genre isn't?) and I'm too much in a hurry to get the reader on my bandwagon so he can enjoy the thrills of the ride as the story unfolds. It's also possible that the sci-fi addict in me gets in the way, but Asimov could write mysteries, even sci-fi mysteries (The Naked Sun was probably the best). So I enjoy a good mystery and admire the craftsmanship. Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie were masters in their time, while P. D. James is the current star (the movie made from her The Children of Men was much better than the novella, though, which shows that others have problems mixing sci-fi and mystery--Asimov may be the exception).

Rose's new novel is a mystery novel. It has all the elements. It is written in the first person, which makes it easy for the author to dribble out the clues, since the reader discovers them along with the person doing the story telling (in this case, the main character). Although my first guess at who the culprit is turned out to be correct (and I didn't cheat--I do my New York Times crossword puzzle the day it comes out), there is no dearth of suspects as we read along. The number of suspects is surprising.

We are talking about a small community of people living around Hemlock Lake in the Catskill Mountains. We are in Ashokan County. While Rose tells us up front that this is fiction and no such place exists, the theme song of Ken Burns' Civil War series was called "Ashokan Farewell" (it's a beautiful yet simple song in the key of D Major that even I can play on the piano). It turns out that Ashokan was the name of a Catskill village now covered by the Ashokan Reservoir. That beautiful place, which provides water to New York City, inspired Jay Ungar to write the song long before the PBS series. It's the only modern song used in the series but it sounds old.

By the way, Hemlock Lake is one of the Finger Lakes, which is not exactly in the Catskills, but very close. And there is a Hemlock Township in Pennsylvania. I can't remember if it's in the Poconos; if it is, the Poconos are really an extension of the Catskills.

I write about all this geography because Rose grew up in the Catskills. The fictional geography around Hemlock Lake is almost another character in her novel. It seems to me to be an important player in all the lives of the locals. The desire to leave it unspoiled is the motivation for all the nefarious goings-on at the lakeside developer's site.

Development around pristine lakes is not new in the Northeast. All those baby boomers are going to retire somewhere. Those in the Northeast are often accustomed to getaways to the northern forests and lakes, so it is logical that some will retire there. Arizona and Florida are no longer the retirement meccas they once were. The trouble that Seattle-based Plum Creek Real Estate Investment had at Moosehead Lake in Maine is a real-life precedent to the action in the novel. I suppose there are many others.

Enough about geographical setting. On the surface Rose's story is simple: Developers are moving into Hemlock Lake and somebody is trying to stop them. Who is it? One or more of the local residents? (Like I said, there's a list of suspects.) Eco-terrorists? One or more of the developer's people? The developer is not a nice guy, for example, and some of his workers are not friendly either. Sheriff's deputy Sgt. Dan Stone is sent from the main office to figure it all out. To make it more interesting, he's a local that left and has a devil of a time getting integrated back into the Hemlock Lake community.

I like the title. "Hemlock" suggests both murder and woods. The first comes from the plant Conium, supposedly used to execute Socrates and employed many times by mystery writers' villains. The woods come from the tree Tsuga, not uncommon in the Northeast. Woods can be very mysterious--in the shadows of the tree canopy during the day and as the owl hoots at night. Titles are important for books. Authors should put some thought into them. Rose's immediately tells me I've got a mystery or a thriller--it turns out to be the former.

But is Hemlock Lake a mystery? It has all the trappings of a good mystery and if you read it that way, you'll be entertained. There's even a nice little twist at the end which exonerates one of the suspects on Rose's list. I found this to be one of the weak points of the story, a kind of deus ex machina (or should I say deus ex homo?--read the book), but you may not. It wasn't tremendously important to the plot, so I'm inclined to forgive her. Still, I would have left it out.

What I really appreciated about this novel was the description of the emotional purgatory in which Dan Stone is living. He's the one telling the story and the reader really gets inside his head. He has lost his wife and brother and his father is in a nursing home after suffering a stroke. He's not exactly in emotional hell because his sanity is salvageable: A newcomer to Hemlock Lake, Camille Chancellor, is able to raise him out of purgatory. This Camille has to choose between Dan and the desire to move on with her life, not exactly the choice Greta Garbo had to make in the 1937 movie Camille (based on Dumas Junior's 1852 novel and play), but maybe I'm reading too much into the name. (It's a complicated name in comparison to most of the others in the novel, so I do think it's significant.) This is the stuff of romance novels, I suppose, but I think the reader will find the Dan and Camille relationship more profound than any they'll find in a romance novel. This is gut-wrenching psychological torment layered on thick above the trappings of mystery and romance. It shows that the author understands human nature.

I usually don't read books like this for entertainment or otherwise. Readers may recall that I reviewed The Big Grabowski that Rose wrote with her husband, Michael Nettleton. That book was a tongue-in-cheek mystery. Hemlock Lake is a mystery that is more than a mystery. I was surprised. In spite of my misgivings, I couldn't put it down. Carolyn J. Rose is a master of her craft.

I recommend that you try this book--you'll end up thoughtful about the human condition. You also may end up emotionally exhausted. But you'll be entertained in the process.

(This review was written for Book Pleasures.)