Less a tale of suspense and more a portrait of a man with a crumbling psyche thanks to secrets in his past. An atmospheric story about small towns, the lies we tell ourselves and each other. ( )

I picked this up at the library because of a recommendation. This book is a murder mystery, a legal thriller and a ghost story. Toronto lawyer Bartholomew Crane drives to Northern Ontario to defend an English teacher accused of murdering two female students. The local legend of “the Lady” seems like a convenient place to rest the guilt and get his client acquitted. But of course things are never that easy. I found this to be a well written, compelling book, but compelling for all the wrong reasons. It has a protagonist that I did not like, an antagonist I felt sympathy for and a small town inhabited by people, with the exception of one, that I was grateful not to have as neighbours. Two thirds of the way through the book I sensed the story was going to resolve itself in one of two possible ways (it did) and as a reader I often find that disappointing. In this case however it was so well done that although I kind of saw it coming it still caught me by surprise. If that makes no sense then you’ll have to read the book and find out for yourself.
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Can't say I liked it and it could have been better but it's ok. ( )

From the cover: Attorney Bartholomew Crane doesn't belong in the small town of Murdoch. And the town of Murdoch doesn't want him there. Even Crane's client, a teacher accused of killing two girls, his own students, doesn't seem to care if Crane gets him off or not. But Bartholomew Crane has come to Murdoch to try his first murder case -- and he intends to win at all costs. That is, until the case takes an unexpected turn. For as Crane begins to piece together a defense for his client, he finds himself being drawn into a bizarre legend at the heart of the town's history -- a legend that is slowly coming alive before his eyes. Unnerved by visions he sees on Murdoch's dark streets, by the ringing of a telephone down the deserted hallway of his hotel, Crane is beginning to suspect that what is happening to him is happening for a reason. And that the two lost girls of Murdoch may be intricately tied to the town's shameful history...and to a dark episode in his own long-forgotten past.

What the cover blurb doesn't mention is Barth brought some demons to Murdoch with him, including a nasty cocaine habit and terminal ennui.

Andrew Pyper gives us a fine view into Barth's disintegrating personality and his increasing obsession with the town legend. Some very nice atmospheric touches -- I could see the trees and feel the cold, smell the dank of Barth's moldering hotel room. A good story, well-written. Recommended.

It took me a long time to get through this book even though it isn’t very long. I stalled because of a couple of things, I think. The synopsis above makes me want to read of long-lost secrets that are covertly tied to the present day. I also am a child of the 20th century and want more action and drama in my fiction. This book was very subtle – like Dracula or Frankenstein is subtle. Emotions play center stage and the paranormal doesn’t have to hit its victims over the head, it just has to play quietly in the corner and wait to be noticed. Also, the author did something I hate – or rather, whoever wrote the synopsis did it. They mention the woman from the seedy strip club and give her significance above and beyond what she actually has in the story. She makes a couple of late night phone calls to Barth, and that somehow unnerves him enough to then start seeing visions of young girls in old-fashioned calico dresses (twice only) in the streets of Murdoch.

That’s when he starts really acting out of character. He’s a cocaine addicted, cutthroat criminal defense lawyer with the morals of a mob hit man. Strangely enough, he has no sex drive. Sure, he frequents strip clubs, but not out of any lust for women. Merely because he finds it interesting and diverting and he somehow feels it is in character for him to go to these places. He hasn’t had sex in years and admits to the fact that he’s so uninterested that he can’t get an erection. It’s because of the incident in his past.

That episode is the first chapter in the book. An anonymous scene between two cousins out canoeing on a lake to escape their somewhat drunk and overtly sexual parents. He wants to take their fooling around to the next level and she suddenly panics and then stands up in the canoe. She goes overboard and he tries to save her but she is pulled down into the depths of the lake by unseen forces.

He is quietly but unprovably blamed for the death and then on the way back from an interview at the police station; his parents are killed in a car accident that left him with only bruises. He puts it out of his mind, but when he hears of the Lady of the Lake, and does research on her, he knows that it was she who pulled his cousin to her death. The Lady also had a hand in killing the two girls the teacher is accused of killing. Thom fell under the spell of the Lady and brings the two girls to the lake on the pretense of seeing if she really exists and trying to get in touch with her. He drowns them at the behest of the Lady.

The Lady is some unnamed WW2 immigrant woman who ends up in Murdoch with two children. She speaks no English and has few skills. Somehow, she ends up being the town pump and then goes mental. She is dragged off to the nut house and routinely sterilized. The kids end up god knows where. She escapes the nut house and ends up drowning herself in the Lake.

In the end, Barth is dismissed from the case before he can get the teacher to plead guilty. The case is thrown out and the teacher goes free. Barth, still in the grip of some madness, goes to the lake and swims out over his head. Someone is swimming out after him. It’s his former client. The teacher sacrifices himself to the Lady and Barth tries to do the same but is rejected by her. He ends up quitting his law firm and that’s the last we see of him.