What Happened at the Lake

I thought I had this book figured out pretty quickly, but realized I was a little off. Good writing, although too many details at times does make for some 2nd and 3rd readbacks. Overall, well written and a good read.

I liked every thing about the novel but two specific items. First was the number of characters. Took a while to sort out who was who. The second was an irritation. The chapter titles were inane. Still, I liked the book.

It didn’t take long to discover that this was not a well-written book. Banal dialogue, bland characters, unimaginative descriptions, essentially writing on a high-school (no a middle-school) level. But, I was away from my home book stash with only a couple of unread books on my Kindle so I decided to plod on. About 20% into the book, the author takes a sudden ghoulish turn with a description of the rape and murder of two young women that was truly disgusting and vile. After ripping the intestines out of one victim and leaving her moaning in the dirt, he viciously rapes and murders the second victim, then returns to rape the first victim in such a sick and twisted way, that I slammed my Kindle shut. I then deleted it so I would not have this piece of garbage on my Kindle. I don’t understand the ratings on this book. If I could give it a minus rating I would. Just awful in every way. I got the Kindle version for free, but this book was worth less than that. There are too many good mystery writers, too waste time on drivel like this.

The story was very intense. I read it in just a few hours. I 'd give the book 5 stars for the story & suspense - but had to settle on 1 star because of the vulgar language. The entire book could've been 100% better if the language was cleaned up. Several times I almost quit reading it, but I wanted to know who did it. Everybody, especially Christians, doesn't accept foul words. I won't be reading any more of his books.

I read this book to find out what happened at the lake, and got told the same story twice with a terrible, unrealistic ending. The only reason that I gave it 2 stars is because it had me bored, engaged, and not being able to stop reading; but once it was over.....I realized it was a waste of time.

The chapter titles are silly and distracting and had no place in this supposed "page turner" thriller. I began to dread the end of a chapter and got to the point where I just stopped reading. The story line was good, but the characters were very one dimensional and dull. An effective editor would have helped. Or maybe the author could have spent more time developing the characters and plot and less on pithy titles.

Reading this book was a total waste of my time. There is a quote in the book about how anyone can publish a book these days, even if it isn't any good and this book is an example of that. I foolishly kept reading it thinking it would get better. It did not. Ending was so unrealistic it was laughable. So sorry I wasted my precious life minutes on this book.

If you like to read a story with a bunch of despicable people committing incest, rape, pedophiles & having pages talking about bathroom problems with descriptions of body fluids & excrements, then by no mean read this book.

A vulgar, unnecessarily pornographic, simplistic, and violent novel. I was expecting a good mystery and instead got poor writing and chapter after short chapter of sexual situations or scatological crises. Written like a sex-obsessed teenager. Simply awful.

I knew from the first novel I read, Against the Grain, by Phil M. Williams that he was a great author. This novel kept me up all night! I simply could not put it down. I highly recommend it and can't wait to read more by this author.

Mr. Williams uses words liked "crashed into the water", "marched into the room" when "dove into the water" and "walked into the room" sounds more in keeping with the described action. Marched sounds like a band and crashed sounds like a car accident.

I have no idea what everyone else was reading to cause them to give this book such great reviews, but I actually stopped this about a quarter of the way through - what a load of drivel!! This book was boring, not well written at all, I did not even understand all this rubbish about septic tanks not working blah blah on it went had to stop. Not a good book at all!

Fairly early in the book, one character laments the amount of self-published crap on the store, while criticizing his son's attempts to write a book. There is no such word as "plutonic". Since my ninth-grader can spell better than the author, I put this in the "self-published crap" category.

This is an excellent read with a mystery that seems straightforward but veers into a mystery that is very complex. The central figure of the book reaches a point where he trusts virtually no one because everyone, including his own family members, become suspect. I would have given it 5 stars but I had a problem with the chapter headings. They interfered with the story and seemed rather childish at time. In fact, I almost stopped reading it less than a quarter of the way in because they made me worry that the story was going to be ridiculous. Ignore the totally unnecessary chapter headings and you will enjoy an excellent mystery.

This is one of those rare reads where you decide one third of the way in that you know "who" did it. The characters keep changing in their demeanor and you go, oh, okay. Now I see where this is going. However, this book is a "ride" you will never forget. Fantastic read and very thought provoking. I dare you to read it and not be caught up in what happened at the lake.

The story was very intense. I read it in just a few hours. I 'd give the book 5 stars for the story & suspense - but had to settle on 1 star because of the vulgar language. The entire book could've been 100% better if the language was cleaned up. Several times I almost quit reading it, but I wanted to know who did it. Everybody, especially Christians, doesn't accept foul words. I won't be reading any more of his books.

I read this book to find out what happened at the lake, and got told the same story twice with a terrible, unrealistic ending. The only reason that I gave it 2 stars is because it had me bored, engaged, and not being able to stop reading; but once it was over.....I realized it was a waste of time.

The chapter titles are silly and distracting and had no place in this supposed "page turner" thriller. I began to dread the end of a chapter and got to the point where I just stopped reading. The story line was good, but the characters were very one dimensional and dull. An effective editor would have helped. Or maybe the author could have spent more time developing the characters and plot and less on pithy titles.

Five stars! I could not stop reading until I finished the book. Action, suspense and an emotional attachment to the characters. Will let my reading friends know about Phil Williams and I'll be looking for more books by him.

This book was great! It had so many twists and turns, sometimes I went back and reread some of it! That's because I mostly listened to it while commuting and I wanted to make sure that I heard it right! Alex was a really strong character throughout the whole book and I really liked him. He was a good Dad. I would definitely recommend this book and I am going to read more books from this author!

I started this book last night, late. Finished it shortly after dawn this morning. It’s one of those you can’t put down. WARNING: for the nervous nellies out there, if you can’t stomach graphic descriptions of violence and crime scenes, don’t read this one! Go back to your Harlequin romance and leave the adult literature to those of us that are mature enough to handle it.

This novel kept me guessing. Him? No! It was him! I was at least partially right, but I didn’t see it coming.

Some things can’t be fixed. I remember reading a book years ago where the main character’s daughter was killed in the first chapter. How do you fix that! You can’t. But life goes on... and this author did a fantastic job of bringing the survivors through what have been a life destroying tragedy, into a bright and happy future.

Very thought provoking, very original. Will read more by this author.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Good plot. Kept me guessing until the end. I liked the main characters. It was realistic and believable. I look forward to reading more from this author.
Thank you, mr. Williams.

This is a great ? read. It covers so much. Family love and hate. People making mistakes and tryin to make them right. All the time weaving God into their live. Not for the week; strong subject matter. Great thriller, mystery. It will catch you and will not let you go!

I must say this is a very good book,I could not put it down until I finished it. In my mind I had someone guilty it would completely go a different way. The ending quite a surprise.Thanks for a good read.

I was intrigued by the synopsis of this book but wasn’t sure about it because it wasn’t a genre that I would normally read. It was free so, l thought it would be worth a try. Although it ultimately wasn’t the genre for me, I did enjoy it.

This book was a little too dark for my reading taste because if I read a thriller/suspense book now, I prefer it to have a large element of romance in it. However, I believe this book would appeal to both male and female readers who like their thriller/suspense books straight up with no romance.

The editing of this book was good and I don’t remember any errors, although there may have been some. If there were, then they were few in number and not intrusive.

The characters and dialogue were the slightest bit flat and stiff at times, but were still good overall. It struck me that the author was still perfecting his craft, but was definitely getting it right. The plot itself was excellent, though, and there were a number of twists and turns, as well as a surprise ending. I think that a couple of events were not entirely realistic, but this was fiction and the story played out the way many of us wish would happen in real life.

There were some sexual encounters but definitely not erotica.

My review is not meant to be negative, because I thought any flaws were minor and the author told a good story. I definitely recommend this book, even though it turned out to be the wrong genre for me.

Note : I received this book for free.

Pro : had a decent, if somewhat used plot that could have been used better under other circumstances.

Con : A wide cast of characters that have a lot to say, half of it maybe relevant to the plot, and that don't get a lot of actual characterisation. Because of this it's hard to remember who's who, and it's even harder to actually care what happens to them. I got little emotional satisfaction from the ending of the novel when the perps were brought to justice because there just wasn't enough reason for me to feel anything about them as people, positive or negative.

It was okay enough for me to finish it, but it won't be a go-to for me to read again.

Enjoyed the book. I love twists and turns. Stopped at Norris Lske, NC and continued this read just as that location was introduced. Then later read about Jackson Hole and a resort where .we ate dinner

I really enjoyed this book. Once I started, I couldn't put it down. I loved the way author kept me in suspense. Just had to keep reading! Had to find out exactly what happened at the lake! You will love it.

It's been a while since I tried to read this book. So, I'll just say that I could not get interested and finally gave up. There wasn't any one thing that made me feel that way. I couldn't keep track of all the characters is one thing that I remember although that usually doesn't bother me in other books. It just wasn't my cup of tea!

By the middle of this book I extremely disliked almost every single character. Horrible people, that do horrible things to others including family pets (I mean geez really?). By the end of the book I couldnt stand the author as well for the grotesqueness in his mind . I should’ve put the book down halfway through but I thought there has to be an amazing ending that makes this book extremely worthwhile for all of these five star reviews . Nope.

I really loved the story line of this book, but had a hard time with the way the characters were written. So many of them came off as immature - whether they were a teen or supposed adult. I can’t imagine a teen that is completely jealous of the way her aunt looks. And I also can’t picture an adult using the word “like” constantly when talking. It almost made me want to stop reading, but I’m so glad I didn’t because the story line was really good and I’m glad I finished it.