100% a me problem
This is the first book in what's going to be a new series. I found the writing redundant and the investigation juvenile. Also, with being the first in a series, a lot of groundwork was being laid for future arcs, like her next sheriff campaign and I wasn't interested in her enough to want to know more about her. I wanted the mystery

Title: And the Lake will Take Them
Series: Book #1 Sheriff Red Mysteries
Author: Linda Norlander
Format: 🎧
Narrator: Elizabeth Ashby
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Pub Date was: March 25, 2025
My Rating: 3 Stars
Pages: 318

This is Book #1 in the Sheriff Red Mysteries series, set in rural Minnesota.
The story begins in isolated cabin on Hammer Lake during a Minnesota snowstorm when the where cabin is destroyed by fire leaving a high school drug dealer injured and a teenage girl, Missy Klein, missing.
Sheriff Red Hammergren, is determined to find Missy. As she investigates the case, she uncovers connections to cold cases, including the murder of Missy’s father.
It appears drug trafficking has been happening in this small community.

Want to thank NetGalley and Tantor Audio for this audiobook.
Publishing Release Day was March 25, 2025.

This was a fast-moving story. I quite enjoyed meeting Sheriff Red and getting to a great twist! I hope there are more stories of Sheriff Red to come.

Thank you NetGalley and Tantor Audio for this audiobook.

I just finished a good thriller that is available now. And the Lake Will Take Them by Linda Norlander is one to listen to.

First I’ve read of this author, but a great start…apparently to a new series!

Sheriff Red Hammergren is a tough cookie!! But then again, I guess she HAS to be! Being as several of the heavy hitting men in town have it in for her! 😮

We open up with an explosion at a remote cabin, in the middle of one of many heavy snowstorms in Minnesota. A teenage boy is critically injured, and a teenage girl is missing….
Is she dead? Is her body amid the debris in the flaming cabin?
What caused the explosion? Did it have something to do with drugs??
Because as the Sheriff investigates, it seems like all options are pointing to the boy being a drug dealer….

So now she is in pursuit of finding Missy, the missing girl…

But as she’s trying to track her down, she keeps coming across stuff from other murders/crimes that have been committed in this smallish town! Are they all connected somehow??

It’s refreshing to see a Sheriff take such a keen interest in EVERYONE in her town! She seems to have a pretty close handle on all things going on there… and if she finds something she is not all that invested in, well, she’ll get more invested!!

So as time goes on, more and more twists/details come out, and they all seem to be leading her somewhere…
But just where will this lead her, and when will it end?

And… can they find and save Missy in time???

4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for me!

#AndTheLakeWillTakeThem by #LindaNorlander and narrated nicely by #ElisabethAshby.

Thanks so much to #NetGalley and #TantorAudio for an ARC of the audiobook, in exchange for an honest review.
*** Release date is today, 3/25/25, so look 👀 for it on shelves now !! ***

You can find my reviews on: Goodreads,
Insta @BookReviews_with_emsr and/or
My Facebook Book Club: Book Reviews With Elaine

Thanks so much for reading! And if you ‘liked’ my review, please share with your friends, & click ‘LIKE’ below… And, let me know YOUR thoughts if you read it!! 📚⭐️

And The Lake Will Take Them gets straight to the action. The author wastes no time introducing the reader to Sheriff Red and the mysterious disappearance of Missy. There are several persons of interest, and it was hard to guess where the story would go. A note for audio specifically: it was sometimes difficult to keep track of all of the characters and I found that I had to relisten to refresh myself with who the author was referring to. I felt like the ending came together very quickly and would have enjoyed a little more build-up. I enjoyed the character of Sheriff Red and would read other novels that feature her. It was an especially good thriller for readers who prefer less graphic content. I would highly recommend this book!

This book had me invested from the very beginning to the end. There was mystery, missing an old love, drama. The characters were believable, and she gave a nod to Winterpeg. Such a great story. I listened to the audio and the narrator was good.

This one was really slow. It was an okay story but I felt like nothing really happened. Not the kind of thriller I’m used to. There was a lot of potential but this one just wasn’t for me.

Hopefully this is tge beginning of a new series featuring Sheriff Red Hammergren. Small town winter thriller at its best. A blizzard is ravaging a small town in rural Minnesota, Sherrif Red works a questionable death and possible missing person case. Sheriff Red  has several cold cases in her desk that she revisits each year. Red is called to the scene of a fire, she finds a severely injured high school drug dealer who utters his lasts words to her as he is taken to the ambulance. Soon after she is called to the report of a missing teen. Could all of the cases be tied together? Exciting and well paced, this story will keep you guessing until the final pages.

4 stars

Thank you to Tantor Media for the ALC. The narrator, Elisabeth Ashby was great. Top notch production quality.

A cabin fire in the middle of a harsh Minnesota snowstorm leaves Sheriff Red Hammergren with a critically injured teenage boy and a missing teenage girl. Racing against the snow, Red pulls at the threads of her small community and finds much more than she bargained for.

Overall I enjoyed this story. The writing is really excellent, and the pacing was good. The issue I ran into was that this book (I see it's the first in a series) introduces SO MANY characters and backstories I really struggled to keep everything straight. If some of the tangential storylines or at least some of the backstory had been cut and then maybe peppered into later installments this likely would have been a five star for me but I just consistently struggled to keep it straight. At one point there is a pretty graphic description of a woman in labor and it was so out of place that I had to check my app to make sure I hadn't accidentally opened the wrong book. Possibly I missed something, but I still do not understand how that scene fit in, but again, it could be because I struggled to understand how all the characters fit.

Still, the writing was good, and the pace was good, I would definitely try a second book in the series, but I would really hope for a much more streamlined case next time because the character issue just really took away from the story.

Unrelated to the writing, I also think the title kind of suggests something very nefarious and vaguely horror genre, as if The Lake is its own character with its own ill intentions or its own history of mysteriously claiming lives and it never really explored that.

⭐️3.4 Stars⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read And The Lake Will Take Them! I’m a sucker for a winter thriller (probably because I live in the desert🌵). I really enjoyed the beginning of this book and loved that it had the sheriff’s point of view as well as the missing teens! I also enjoyed the narrator of this audiobook. As the book went on I was struggling to remember all the characters introduced to the point of when the killer was revealed it took me awhile to remember who that person was in the story because they were barely shown and so many characters were introduced. I also felt like the way the killers mental health was portrayed at the end of the book wasn’t very accurate to someone with her mental health struggles. Other than that I enjoyed the story and would definitely read more from this author in the future! Thank you again to NetGalley!💕📚

Let me preface this by saying I DNF’d at 50%. For a thriller, I found this book to be very slow paced and a bit all over the place. The MC, Red, had a lot of side quests even just 50% into the book, and I felt a bit bored by the lack of focus on the mystery at hand. There may have been ways this was tied into the end of the story, but I was not engrossed enough to make it to the end of the book to find out. I’m used to thrillers being fast-paced, which I did not find this to be. If you prefer books with a slower pace and less “focus”, this may be a good fit for you. With being halfway through the book, I did not feel that enough had been uncovered in the mystery or that much had happened at all.

I also struggled with the audio performer. I felt she was just a bit flat, although I think that may have to do with the book being in 3rd person.

And The Lake Will Take Them is a terrific start to a new series featuring a strong female sheriff in a rural MN town in the middle of a winter blizzard. The internal dialogue Sheriff Red Hammergren shares as she links the death of one teenager and the disappearance of another to several cold cases, paints a picture of a strong no-nonsense sheriff who also has great compassion and empathy for the less fortunate. I can’t wait to learn more about the small MN town and the host of interesting characters we have already met.

This is a review of the audiobook, so I need to get a big complaint out of the way. The narrator was doing some sort of accent for the characters in this small town in Minnesota, and I don't know what it is, but it did not sound Minnesotan at all. I am from Minnesota, albeit the Twin Cities, not rural Minnesota like this book is set, and this just sounded off to me. Now, I don't think I would have noticed or had any particular complaint had the narrator not tried to do any kind of accent, but since the dialogue was read noticeably differently than the rest of the text, obviously she was. The main feature of this "Minnesota" accent seemed to be dropping the g on every single -ing word. Some words, sure, but this is not some kind of stereotypical Minnesota thing, and it didn't sound right to me. I would describe it as maybe she was doing a Southern accent without the twang? I don't know if I could even put my finger on exactly what else was wrong with it, it just sounded off, and I think perhaps it was that mainly she just dropped her g's and then didn't try to do anything Minnesota-y with her vowels and inflection? It was super distracting to me and consequently I spent a large portion of the audiobook waiting for her to say "bag" so I could judge how Minnesotan it was (spoiler: not at all!) It got me very riled up and at one point I shouted "I think you mean hot dish!" when she said the word "casserole", and then remembered I couldn't blame the word choice on the narrator.

However, if you are not from here or if you are less prone to obsessing over such details, you will probably not mind this accent, whatever it is, and other than that the narration was fine--nothing outstanding, but fine.

As for the story, this is the beginning of a series about a widowed 40-something female sheriff in a rural Minnesota county. In the dead of winter, amid multiple snowstorms, she is looking for a missing girl and trying to find the source of some mysterious--possibly drug-related--money. She also has some personal matters going on that lead to the reader getting more background about her late husband and father-in-law, both former sheriffs of the same county.

I thought Red was a fairly likable character. She does her job, goes home to her small dog, and goes to poker night with a group of women in the town. She does go off on political tangents every now and then, which mostly have little to do with the story, but I guess mostly are there to establish Red's character. While I did think they stood out to me as not really flowing well in a few cases, they were generally things I was in total agreement with her about, so it was not anything I minded, but conservative readers who seek to avoid that kind of thing may end up riled up by this book. These political rambles generally ended up with Red thinking about how she had better not mention THAT to the conservative townspeople whose votes she needs, so maybe the point was also to establish how a sheriff is a political animal and needs to behave that way.

The mystery for me, was so-so--I didn't find myself all that invested in what happened to Missy, where the money came from, who killed an unidentified man several decades ago. Red's investigating mostly involved asking everyone she ran into if they'd ever heard of a person named Coke, so I guess the sleuthing was just all right for me too. There was also an unexpectedly vivid birth (or, I guess, pre-birth) scene, and the image of a "throbbing" umbilical cord emerging before the baby is probably the part of the book that will stick with me the longest! This story did keep me engaged though, but I'm not sure it was enough that I'd pick up the next in the series, unless the plot sounds especially good. I did enjoy the small town setting and all the snow, however, and I would be interested to see how Red progresses as a character over further books.

All in all, I'd say check this one out if you think the plot sounds intriguing or you like books set in Minnesota (maybe don't do the audio though...), but it isn't one of the top mysteries I'd recommend.

This audio was interesting and very entertaining. The cover intrigued me to want to read it so thank you to Netgalley for the audio.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor audio for this ARC of And the Lake Will Take Them.

This book started off a little slow for me, but picked up towards the end. I’m glad it didn’t focus too much on “Not Me” for obvious reasons. There was quite a lot going on and at times that made me feel like the main plot point got put on the back burner. I also wish we would have got a little more from Missy’s perspective too.

I was definitely surprised with the twist. I will say with so many different characters introduced, you couldn’t guess who the culprit was.

I’m also glad Red finally got some peace at the end and got to hang out with her dog, lol.

#AndtheLakeWillTakeThem #NetGalley

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC opportunity!

This was okay. It kept my attention enough, and the story flowed well but there were parts that felt scattered or like an after thought. I also find it strange that no one caught on to Bobbie’s insane behavior because it was easy to clock almost immediately.

I think this would be a good starter thriller for someone who wants to dip their toe in.

3.5 stars.

This book was good and the story was interesting but it was a bit slower paced than I would’ve like. Especially since it’s being promoted as a chilling thriller. It’s a great mystery and there are a couple of twists.

If you’re looking for a murder mystery with a strong female lead, then this book is for you!

Snow, missing people, drugs, sex and lies are all interwoven into this one!

Thank you to NetGalley for the audio arc!

Small town crime has never sounded so good. This audiobook was everything I expected and more, dirty little secrets revealed one by one and a detective with a heavy past and an endearing little pet.

Thank you Netgalley for this ALC.

"Find coke, find her"
I just finished the audio version and though it was great! I was instantly hooked from the beginning.
(I wish I would have listened to it in the colder months because it takes place during winter in rural Minnesota - making it the perfect addition for your winter TBR pile)

Follow local Sherrif Red as she unravels the truth behind the disappearance of Missy Klein. Shes a character you find yourself rooting for early on and I absolutely loved getting to know her. She is smart as a whip and determined. If you like books with strong female leads, small town secrets, lies, murder and drug trafficking you'll like this one. Publishing later this month, you’ll definitely want to check this it out!