Book Review: ‘The House Across The Lake: A Novel’ By Riley Sager

Review by Lauryn Angel

I’ve said it before, but one thing I look forward to every summer is a new thriller by Riley Sager, and this summer is no exception. Sager’s latest, The House Across the Lake, treads some familiar territory as an homage of sorts to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, but then takes a surprising twist.

Our protagonist is Casey Fletcher, an actress whose life took a downward turn with the death of her husband. Casey seeks solace from her grief in alcohol, and after some very public incidents, she has agreed to retreat to her family’s lake house – at her mother’s insistence. The problem is that the lake house is also the scene of her husband’s untimely death, and Casey has no intention of curbing her drinking.

Casey develops a fascination with her neighbors across the lake – supermodel Katherine Royce and her multi-millionaire husband Tom. What starts out as a way to pass the time becomes a borderline obsession as Casey discovers that the picture-perfect couple may not be as perfect as they seem. And then Katherine disappears.

The story is entertaining, if predictable for the most part – right up until the twist that marks it as different from Sager’s past novels. It definitely caught me off-guard, and I like a thriller that I can’t figure out all the answers to. It’s a quick, fun read, and I devoured it in one day in my backyard hammock. I highly recommend it, and can’t wait to see what Sager does next!