The Lakehouse
Available from Square Tire Books
Todd Norman, cleared of his wife’s murder, returns to her small Connecticut hometown to build their dream house by the lake. Eager for a fresh start, Todd finds hopes dashed when a young woman’s body washes up on the neighboring beach.
When Tracy Somerset, a divorced mother from Covenant, CT, encounters a handsome stranger late one night inside Wal-Mart, she’s unaware she’s talking to Todd Norman, dubbed “The Banker Butcher” by the New York tabloids. The next morning, another body surfaces near Todd’s under-construction lakehouse.
As Sheriff Duane Sobczak’s investigates, troubling ties emerge between a local psychiatrist, a radical preacher, and a now-closed girls’ home. Set over New England’s four seasons, The Lakehouse delves into forbidden love and buried secrets within an insular community where everyone has a story to tell and a past they prefer stay buried.
Praise
—Publishers Weekly
—Library Journal
“The Lakehouse is a riveting page-turner where the secrets roll at you like dice. Clifford’s gritty and immersive writing style is the perfect vehicle for this tale of a town where nothing is as it seems, where truth after astonishing truth is revealed layer by layer, until it all comes together in a satisfying crescendo. Highly recommended.”
—Jess Lourey, Amazon Charts bestselling author of Unspeakable Things
—J.T. Ellison
“Joe Clifford’s The Lakehouse is a gritty and wonderfully menacing story. You’ll want to rush and slow down while reading. You’ll want to peek and stare down what’s coming. This is one of Clifford’s greatest tricks―and one of his best novels to date.”
—Rachel Howzell Hall author of They All Fall Down