Book Review: The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

I’ve heard a lot of opinions about Riley Sager. Some people love his writing. Other think he has a hard time writing women. Even as I picked up this novel in Barnes and Noble, a fellow reader told me she just finished this and it was great. So I read my first Riley Sager novel. I wasn’t disappointed.

The story follows Casey, a grieving actress who is drinking herself into oblivion at a remote lake in Vermont. Across the lake, a famous model and her husband have moved in. Casey takes to spying on them with a pair of binoculars out of boredom but as the model befriends her, Casey realizes that something is amiss. The model goes missing and Casey thinks the husband killed her. When she involves the cops, she finds out a serial killer may be involved.

It’s hard to talk about this novel without spoilers, but I’ll do my best. This novel goes exactly where I think it will, but does it in a way I didn’t see coming. A nice surprise, but I also don’t like be right about twists. I like to be wrong. Shocked at where a book goes. This book did that. And it didn’t at the same time.

As far as the complaints of Sager not writing women well, I think he does it just fine in this novel. Where this book succeeds is in how deeply it delves into the main character’s trauma and grief. How Casey keeps you guessing even when you eventually find out you guessed right. Casey is never a boring character.

Three and a half stars out of five. Would have been five out of five if Sager had truly shocked me with a twist I didn’t see coming.