This
week for Friday’s Forgotten Books I selected LAKE CHARLES by Ed Lynskey. This
mighty good book was also subject to one of our “Double
Take Book Reviews” a couple of years ago where Barry and I both reviewed
the same book. Patti has a lot going on these days, but I think she will have
the list later today. If she is
not doing it, she will have the information on the designated link gatherer
posted.
It is 1979 and Brendan Fishback
isn’t doing too well in the game called life. Waking up next to a dead woman
can cause huge problems. The fact that she, Ashleigh Sizemore, was the daughter
of the wealthy and powerfully connected, Ralph Sizemore is a huge problem. Word
is old Ralph is going to be a Senator. The fact that drugs were planted in the
room is a huge issue. The fact that Brendan keeps having strange dreams and
visions where the dead teenage girl talks to him about her murder is a huge
problem.
Despite the odds and the nice frame
job against him, Brendan Fishback gets out on bail. Besides avoiding the
shyster slime ball lawyer his mother, Mama Jo, hired for him Brendan plans to
go fishing with his brother in law and good friend, Cobb Kuzawa. A quiet couple
of days at Lake Charles, a local man-made lake created by the Tennessee Valley
Authority, will be as good a break as he can get these days.
Like Brandan, the best days seem to
have gone by the lake as it and the surrounding area is in bad shape. If trying
to detox from all the pot he has done isn’t enough, the area flat out reeks and
is depressing to look at. Back in the day, it used to be a happening place. Not
only is nobody apparently around, but there is the stench of rot and decay at
the marina area and large sections of the lake are fouled by algae scum. Not
only do they have to get the bass boats through that, Brendon has to listen to
his sister Edna and Cobb bicker.
Edna invited herself along and that
had not been the plan. What been initially planned as a guy trip has mutated
into a cranky family outing. Edna and Cobb fight constantly and both of them
are driving him nuts. Clearly, Edna should have never married Cobb and
certainly she should never have come on the trip. They are driving each other
nuts too and before long Edna rockets away on her jet ski towards the dam area
leaving the other two behind on the lake in their boats.
And she never comes back.
The search is soon on and leads
Brendan and Cobb into a violent confrontation. The first of many confrontations
proving that the lake area is not at all deserted like they thought. Brendan
wants his sister back, alive and in one piece, and knows too well they can’t
get help from the corrupt local police. The trail of the missing Edna leads
back and forth across the Lake Charles area and the Tennessee Mountains while
Brendan soldiers on getting the answers he seeks. Some of them won’t be pretty.
The front cover has a blurb quote
from author Ed Gorman, "Lake Charles is going to scorch your soul . . .
I loved it." That pretty much sums up things very well for this very
complicated book where everyone has a dark backstory that gradually comes out.
A dark and twisted noir tale that starts with a bang and goes in many different
ways by use of dreams and flashbacks and forward literary narrative before
bringing the whole thing to a surprising conclusion.
Simply put, Lake Charles
by Ed Lynskey is a mighty good book and one well worth your time.
Lake Charles
Ed Lynskey
Wildside Press LLC
June 2011
ISBN# 978-1-4344-3046-5
Paperback
192 Pages (includes one page of
reference sources)
$12.99
Material supplied by the author in
exchange for my objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2011, 2013, 2015
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