Monday, October 29, 2018

The Lake Crimes by Gemma Herrero Virto



Ever the sucker for good cover art, I went into this book pretty blind looking for a good, creepy book for this month. I'm always up for giving lesser known authors a chance as long as the premise is good and appeals to me one way or another. Let's get right to it and see how it did.

Eric Armstrong is haunted. While growing up in a small town of Swanton beside Lake Champlain, he witnessed the deaths of three children, one of them being his first crush, drowned in the dark lake by an unknown murderer. Wracked with guilt and nightmares of the drowned children, Eric and his family moved away, with Eric never truly recovering from the shock. But fifteen years after the murders and Eric still only just getting by, he comes across a children's book supposedly written by one of the drowned victims of his childhood. Eric must return to Swanton and confront his childhood terrors, lest even more children lose their lives in the dark waters of the lake.

This book was a little hot and cold for me, to be honest. There were things I liked about it and things that really annoyed me. The biggest gripe I'll get out of the way right now. This book was originally written in Spanish and I read the English translation (the only Spanish I know is Donde es el baño? and Ayúdame, estoy muriendo!) That being said, whoever translated this...did not do the best job. At times it really felt they just put the whole thing into Google Translate and hoped for the best. Too many times did things come out jumbled, are flat-out incorrect, or just come out as things people just don't say. Things like "she no longer had age to play dolls" or "without caring about the hatred look" or "I refuse with my head" (this one is repeated a lot). It's not the author's fault, per se, but it really does take away from the experience of reading the book.

Now, about the story itself. The concept of the story is a very good one. There's a lot of potential here. A murder mystery with supernatural elements with Ouija board sessions, prophetic dreams, ancient curses...I eat this stuff up. But the enjoyment of the these things is much easier to enjoy if you've got a good main character to go on the trip with you. Eric...tries. Now, he's not as bad as I've seen this character done before. Traumatized characters unable to cope with what happened in their childhoods can sometimes be the type of characters that throw huge fits with figures of authority, rave like lunatics so nobody believes them even when they're telling the truth, overreact at the slightest things...that kind of stuff. And Eric, while he does sometimes fall into this category, does manage to play it smart from time to time. He comes up with convincing stories to talk to people and earns the support and respect of the local police. This was refreshing to see. But we do have to see him yell at a publisher for almost no reason, act super paranoid, and he really obsesses over his first crush. Like SUPER obsesses over it. It got a bit unsettling at times for me.

Those things being said, the plot of the story does still come out pretty well. The origin of the evil was interesting and creepy, there were several plot twists that were refreshingly done, the ending was satisfying...there was stuff in here I really liked. It just took awhile to get to these good things because the pace was very slow at times, but picked up right when we needed it. There's good stuff in this book, but you have to dig through a lot to finally get there.

Final Verdict
I liked a lot of what they ended up doing but I just wish that it had been handled better. Great story but slow pace, competent characters...most of the time, fantastic elements but poor translation. If someone asked me if they should read this book, I'd tell them yeah if they were interested...but maybe read it in its original Spanish...and wait for it on paperback.

Have you read the book? What did you think? Comment below and share your thoughts. Please make sure to Follow Midnight Readings for instant updates. Have a book you'd like me to read or would like to make a recommendation? Contact me on goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/65448711-michelle-beer

If you would like to read my book, Powerless, you can find it at:

Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Powerless-Shelley-Miller/dp/1543482546/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519062043&sr=8-1&keywords=powerless+by+shelley+miller

Xlibris: https://www.xlibris.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001175242

Next Time: Can you be free of the King of Cuffs?

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