The Lake House

Finished March 13
The Lake House by Kate Morton

This novel, like many of Morton's others has linked stories from the past and present. Here, the link is the house of the title. In the present, London police officer DC Sadie Sparrow is on a leave from her job, visiting her grandfather at his home in Cornwall. Her grandfather moved here recently, after the death of her grandmother, and therefore Sadie hasn't been here before. She is a very driven woman, with good instincts about her cases. A recent case on a missing woman has got her in trouble as she was sure the woman did not leave of her own accord, despite a note, and Sadie grew frustrated when others on the force dismissed her opinion. She made an anonymous comment to the press that has her superiors unhappy and is taking some time for things to die down.
She isn't a woman who can sit still however, and as she does one of her runs around the area she finds a large estate where the grounds and house show signs of abandonment. Her curiosity piqued, she puts her energies into this new mystery. Once she finds that the family more or less left the house unlived in after the disappearance of the young son of the family in 1933, she wants to unravel the mystery of his disappearance. Working with the local librarian, and an elderly man who was a young policeman on the case, she continues her research, asking the surviving owner for a meeting and permission to access the house.
When eighty-six year old Alice Edevane gets Sadie's letter, she is brought back to that summer when she was sixteen and the events that transpired. She is now a well-known mystery writer, with a young assistant Peter who helps her organize her work and obligations. At first, she finds the reminder upsetting, but gradually realizes that these events have haunted her life and influences her personal relationships.
As the past and the present come together, secrets of many kinds are revealed.
I really enjoyed this book, and the mysteries of the plot. Sadie and Alice are both strong women, with hidden secrets that they must deal with to move forward positively.