{"id":7108,"date":"2022-12-08T20:41:27","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T01:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=7108"},"modified":"2022-12-08T20:41:27","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T01:41:27","slug":"stillhouse-lake-is-a-perfect-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/stillhouse-lake-is-a-perfect-thriller\/","title":{"rendered":"“Stillhouse Lake” is a Perfect Thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

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I\u2019ve been reviewing mysteries and thrillers since the 90s and it\u2019s been a very long time since I got goosebumps reading a crime novel. And even longer since I felt torn between rushing ahead to find out what was going to happen next and slowing down to savor and marvel at what an amazing book I was reading.

Rachel Caine\u2019s Stillhouse Lake<\/em> is that book. It\u2019s beautifully crafted, scary and terrific in every single way: plot, characterization, style, and pacing. Hell, even the cover is creepily perfect.

Caine\u2019s hypnotic narrator is Gwen Proctor, a woman on the run ever since her husband\u2019s horrific secret life was exposed and led him to prison. She\u2019s trying to protect herself and her kids from the sociopaths on the Internet who blame her for her husband\u2019s crimes and make obscene, horrific threats. As happens way too often now, hatred\u2019s gone viral and she\u2019s the target of a vicious, disgusting cyber mob.

Despite the despair she sometimes feels, she\u2019s strong, resourceful, and a very good shot. She\u2019s turned herself into a fierce and indefatigable woman who might remind you of Sarah Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.<\/em>

Gwen needs to be quick-thinking and strong because she\u2019s pursued by psycho cyber terrorists. She and her kids keep having to abandon one town after another, one identity after another, until perhaps, just perhaps they\u2019ve found a new home with people they can trust and maybe even admire.

Well, you know how long that\u2019s going to last\u2026.

Caine avoids a trap many thriller writers fall into: her action scenes are as clear as possible without an excess word, and you always know exactly what\u2019s happening. Equally important, she\u2019s also a deft psychologist, capturing every single nuance of Gwen\u2019s struggle in lean, evocative prose. Gwen\u2019s love for her children is so intense the book practically blazes with that love. Her torment is just as intense. How could she have been so naive as to marry a man who was a heinous criminal\u2013and not figured him out? The shame, the guilt, it\u2019s all there, dramatized and heightened as one great plot twist follows another.

I actually read the prologue and first chapter twice because I was so blown away by the power and intensity of what Caine was doing, and by the plight of a deeply sympathetic narrator whose life may never be restored to any semblance of normality.

I\u2019ll say it again: this is a perfect thriller. So prepare for plenty of OMG moments, and for losing lots of sleep.

Lev Raphael is the former crime fiction reviewer for The Detroit Free Press and author of ten Nick Hoffman mysteries and seventeen other books in many genres.\u00a0 His work has appeared in fifteen languages.<\/strong><\/em>

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reviewing mysteries and thrillers since the 90s and it\u2019s been a very long time since I got goosebumps reading a crime novel. And even longer since I felt torn between rushing ahead to find out what was going to happen next and slowing down to savor and marvel at what an amazing book … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7108"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7112,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7108\/revisions\/7112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}