This book is a thriller about a murder that takes place near Lake House. I highly enjoyed it even though there was a lot going on. There were several plots several characters. Still an enjoyable read though.

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Todd was recently acquitted of his wife’s murder. He has returned to her small hometown to fulfill his promise to her and finish building their house on the lake. Todd just wants to live a quiet life.
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Late one night, Tracy, a lonely single mother meets Todd in a store. He is so kind and makes her feel a spark that she hasn’t felt in so long.
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A body is found on the shore near the house Todd is building.
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The town is a tightknit community that all believe Todd got away with murdering his wife and is now preying on other women.
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Tracy can’t reconcile the gentle man she met with the man everyone is calling a monster.
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As the investigation unfolds, a link is discovered to the town psychologist and a group home that has been closed down for years.
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I was completely entralled with this story. It kept me up reading late into the night to find out what happened. Just a fair warning- this one leaves some things open to interpretation, which I personally like.
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I really like this author’s writing. It took me a bit to familiarize with his cadence, but I grew to love his diction and syntax. I will definitely read more of his work.
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Isn’t this such a pretty cover?!

Thank you so much for this ARC!

Wow, what an interesting ride! I really was not sure what to expect with this, but wow was it a good ride.

At first, I almost gave up, but so glad I didn't. It was full of twists and turns and I honestly did not see the ending coming, totally surprised!

I was very excited to read this book. It started off great and was really well written, but there wasn’t enough suspense or mystery. I figured out who was to blame early on and the rest of the book was just ok to me.

Joe Clifford created a fast paced storyline, one that transpired throughout a years time. Instead of bogging you down in details that don't add to the plot, Clifford would jump head weeks or months in time and give you a summary of what happened (or didn't happen in some cases). I never felt like I was missing anything with this style and appreciated the effort to keep everything moving. As stories started to unfold, and secrets from the past came to light there were several characters that I thought could be 'guilty' but what really happens had me shocked. Everything does not get wrapped up in a neat little bow, there are loose ends that the reader has to put together themselves. It was the perfect ending for the way The Lakehouse was written.

This was a really fast read. I read this in one sitting and the writing style and the pacing were quick and it was easy to understand the story. I really liked the atmosphere, the setting near the lake was intriguing and the cover definitely portrays the vibes this story had.
I enjoyed the switching POVs too, although I found the Psychiatrist's POV to be a little repetitive. I really liked Tracy and seeing her emotions and struggles as a mother and her relationship with Norman. However, I found that there wasn't enough dialogue and too much inner monologue, especially in the Psychiatrist's chapters.
The plot itself was solid but not very exciting, although I did enjoy seeing all the little clues and how they fell together in the end. I knew who the killer was about halfway through, but I still enjoyed the ending. The mystery was well-constructed and yet I didn't feel like there was ever any real suspense, it was more like just reading along while the plot happened.
I still kept waiting for one more plot twist which never came in the end, and the book somehow left a certain feeling that not all questions have been answered.

+2 just for the amazing cover,
+1 not predictable
-1 not a lot of dialogue
-1 been there, read that kind of story
+1 still readable even with many errors in ARC proof

So the idea and premise of this book is not anything new, but can we talk about the great cover? So pretty! I want that house and the view! Todd Norman is accused of murdering his wife nut gets a not guilty verdict at his trial. He changes his name and moves back to Shallow Lake Connecticut to fulfill the promise he made to his murdered wife to build their dream house. All is going well until neighbors get nosy and another body washes up on the beach by his new house. The police detective is convinced he is guilty and everyone in town knows who he really is "the Banker Butcher." There a lot of misunderstandings, and someone is obviously setting up poo Todd Norman. Is one of his angry former NY bank clients or someone from his deceased wife's old town that is jealous?

I am surprised I liked this as much as I did given there really was not much character dialogue but I was rooting for Todd to the fresh start he deserves. Easier said than done.. Highly recommended. Joe Clifford will definitely be a re=read author.

Thanks to Netgalley, Joe Clifford, and Polis Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 9/22/20

#TheLakehouse #NetGalley
Thanks NetGalley, Polis Books and Joe Clifford for an early copy for review.
This is way difficult to review. A man who was suspected and cleared off murdering his wife returns to her childhood hometown to build their dream home, A single divorced mom falls for him and believes in his innocence unlike the whole town who turns to angry mob fixated on him.
The book is engaging, keeps you hooked till the very last word till you suddenly find no more words but still need unfulfilled answers. I felt like it was the perfect mystery as I feel I never knew the full story, who did what and who didn't do what.
The uncorrected copy has lots of typos, even in the characters names.
I enjoyed the book as a whole and will try another book for Joe Clifford.

This is my first book I have read by Joe Clifford and it won't be the last.The mystery is well written and kept me guessing until the end. I liked that it was set in a small town and I really liked the characters. It is a great thriller/mystery.

Thank you Netgalley, Polis Books, and Joe Clifford for a digital arc in exchange for my honest review.

like other reviews here I was not a fan of The Lakehouse. It lacks any redeeming characters and 1/3 of the way through I realized I didn't care about the plot. The slow pacing made me skim through the psychiatrist Dr Bahsir chapters (and i obviously didn't miss much) and the ending came out of nowhere. Not for me.

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. It started off strong and then fell flat. I was hoping for a creepy mystery but not many interesting events happened and the ending was not satisfying.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

I couldn't get into this one. The ARC is full of proof-reading errors: I particularly hope 'different than' is corrected, but there are issues with names ands incorrect words too. However, the writing grated on me anyway: there is a lot of telling and not much dialogue. All the characters seem mildly hysterical with stereotypical 'small town' attitudes to things and I don't want to read any more about them. I skipped to the end, which is 'full of incident' to put it mildly.

It took me a little while to get into the rhythm of this book. I'm so glad I persevered!

Fantastic story, brilliantly written characters.

Very vivid.

I'm just off to investigate his back catalogue!

This book was probably one of my favorites from this year. The writing was fantastic. The mystery was masterly written and kept me guessing until the very end. Full of twists and turns. Interesting character's. An atmospheric setting. Honestly, I can't really think of one thing I didn't love about this book.

Thanks for the ARC Netgalley and Polis Books!

The short of it:
Greg Norman's wife was murdered. Formerly (presently?) the main suspect in her death, he has been found not guilty.

Hoping to fulfill an old promise, Greg moves from New York City to his now-deceased wife's small hometown in Connecticut, but the town is not so welcoming to outsiders. Especially those accused of murdering their own. So when a dead body shows up near Greg's lakehouse things being to unravel, but not just for Greg - for everyone.

My review of it:
Overall, what I did enjoy, and enjoyed most, was the plot. I had the ending pegged rather early in my read, but I think that's mostly due to my general overconsumption of the genre, and don't necessarily think that it made the journey less enjoyable. Following the mystery of the body by the Lakehouse, and the events thereafter, was still a joy. However, the writing was not quite my style and I found the characters to be very one dimensional, often tottering far towards cliche.... though to Clifford's credit, by the end I had found myself very sympathetic towards the book's police chief, despite initially being quite put off by his generic character build - clearly, something worked! :)

For those who love the genre and can offer a bit of grace, I think you'll find an enjoyable read in The Lakehouse.

My thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC.

Everyone knows everyone. They have history and look out for their own(most of the time). News travels fast. Such is the nature of small towns. Covenant, CT is no different.

It suits some. But, for others who would prefer to remain anonymous...not so much. Greg Norman is one of those "others." Labeled the "Banker Butcher," he was charged with the murder of his wife. That he was acquitted and found innocent was beside the point. April Abbott, his wife, was a hometown girl. He was not banking on a warm welcome from the community. His sole purpose was to fulfill a promise made to his late wife : finish building their dream house on Shallow Lake.

Chief Duane Sobczak runs the Covenant Police Department, if you can call it that. He and his deputy, Tom Kies(who also happens to be his son-in-law), are the only full-time employees. The rest of the staff are volunteers. Nearby Holland police provide back-up. There was never a need for anything more. Nothing ever happened in Covenant. Until now.

A body of a young woman has washed ashore. Right next door to Greg's lake house. The investigation that follows is messy, implicating and exposing many Covenant residents, including the chief's own daughter. Nobody, including myself, could have imagined who the culprit was.

Divided into four parts, representing the change of seasons and told from alternating perspectives, this was an absorbing thriller that kept me guessing.

Thank you to both NetGalley and Polis Books for providing me with an advance copy of Joe Clifford’s latest standalone novel, The Lakehouse.

The Lakehouse is a domestic crime thriller about a former NYC banker, Greg Norman, and the effect that his move to Covenant, CT, has on the town. Recently, having been cleared of his wife’s murder, Greg returns to her hometown to build a lake house. Shortly after construction begins, a body washes up on the beach near his property. The residents, who were already upset that the accused murderer of one of their own was moving to Covenant, immediately suspect Greg is responsible for the death.

The story unfolds from the alternating perspectives of three main characters, including Chief of Police, Dwayne Sobczak; a single mother and divorcee, Tracy Somerset; and a psychiatrist, Dr. Meshulum Bakshir. There are also a handful of rotating secondary characters interspersed throughout, but for the most part, this secondary cast is rarely dedicated a chapter of their own. Instead, their stories are told through the eyes of one of the main three characters.

At first, the story moves along at a decent pace; not breakneck, but fast enough that it encourages the reader to stick with it. If this sentence sounds cliché to you, then buckle up because you are about to be slammed with a slew of them while reading the first-half of this novel. They are not so overdone that it becomes unbearable, but if you are an avid reader of fiction, then you will assuredly recognize some of them as trite.

Fortunately, the plot is so engaging that I was able to overlook the initial clichés and plunge into straight reading. Although it was never slow to begin with, the book really starts to move at a rapid clip around the halfway point, which is why I was so disappointed by the ending. It seemed to fizzle out with many unanswered questions. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if some readers preferred this type of ending.

Additionally, though I enjoyed the story and was certainly entertained by it, my reasons for liking it were strictly plot-driven. I realized while writing this that I actually didn’t care for any of the characters; especially the main trio.

Tracy is annoying. Not sure whether this was done intentionally to convey her naiveté, or if this is how the author believes some women think. Maybe they do and I’m the odd one out? Regardless, I personally didn’t care for her or any of her antics. Also, I didn’t understand why we needed the addition of her child, Logan. He really didn’t serve much purpose other than to say she was a single mom in suburbia and to give her best friend (aka glorified babysitter), Diana, something to do. Some of her outrage makes zero sense and she seems to get dumber as the story unravels.

The Chief is a bizarre mashup of police caricatures. The character even alludes to Hollywood stereotypes, and yet, I felt that he was committing the same sins he claimed he tried never to do as a cop. It was almost as if he had no self-awareness. Again, maybe the author did this on purpose to illuminate the role of the small-town mindset. Regardless of the reason, the character’s stubbornness and largely myopic attitude rubbed me the wrong way. He’s nowhere near as annoying as Tracy is, but there’s definitely something off for a good portion of the book. The one silver-lining is that as his story eventually becomes the key focus of the novel, he develops into a more likeable character and finally realizes all of his shortcomings. Growth!

Dr. Bakshir remains the oddest out of the three and his storyline also has some of the stranger passages in terms of the writing. I will not reveal too much about him because it will give away some of the mystery, but I will say that given what the reader is told about his neurotic tendencies, some of his actions do not quite match up. You’ll see.

As for secondary characters, the author randomly throws in some details that Tracy’s best friend/babysitter, Diana, is a Latina in “lily-white Covenant.” Considering that Tracy’s inner monologue veers into absurdity sometimes, I didn’t really find this fact necessary to the story or the character. Again, except as a vehicle to move along the story and have Tracy explain certain parts of herself, not really sure what purpose she served.

I would’ve liked to learn more about the “Three A-holes.” In fact, I think Amanda could have made a decent secondary character and I wish she had been incorporated into more of the story than her husband Tom.

Also, while not important to the story itself, my copy had a bunch of typos and potentially misplaced passages? Not sure. Near the end, some of the break-offs within chapters seemed oddly placed. I’m guessing these will be fixed by publication date, so if you are as anal as Dr. Bakshir, do not let this fact deter you from reading it.

Overall, despite disliking the majority of characters, I found the twists and turns exciting, thought the plot itself had strong potential, and I enjoyed the grittiness in many of the descriptions. While I would’ve liked a few more questions answered, in the end, I think it deserves a solid 3.5 stars. With some more publications and polish, I think Mr. Clifford could easily become a name that readers seek out when looking for their next crime thriller.

A good mystery in a small Connecticut town where the Sheriff has to sift through all the secrets and lies to track down a murderer.

Woah this was such a pleasant surprise! I found it hard to put down and the suspense was definitely there! I was a big fan and it was exactly what I was in the mood for!

What a twist of a book! I couldn't put it down, I never saw it coming, this truly had me at the edge of my seat the entire time.

You pivot with several major characters in this book: divorced mother Tracy Somerset who is desperately trying to find happiness again, Dr. Bakshir who is trying to find...well something, and exhausted Chief Deputy Sobczak who just wants to have a relationship with his daughter. With a recent murder in the small, quiet town of Covenant you really have no idea where the story goes until you get to the next page.

If you enjoy small town mysteries and some good quality character development, look no further. This book has family drama, tragedy, politics, crime, murder, drugs, all wrapped into one nice dysfunctional bow.

Thank you Joe Clifford, Polis Books, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!