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Starvation Lake: A Mystery |  | Author: Bryan Gruley
Publisher: Touchstone
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $1.25
as of 9/9/2010 17:19 MDT details
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Seller: atlanta-book-company
Rating:  96 reviews
Sales Rank: 9388
Media: Paperback
Edition: Original
Pages: 370
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 1416563628
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781416563624
ASIN: 1416563628
Publication Date: March 3, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In the dead of a Michigan winter, pieces of a snowmobile wash up near the crumbling, small town of Starvation Lake -- the same snowmobile that went down with Starvation's legendary hockey coach years earlier. But everybody knows Coach Blackburn's accident happened five miles away on a different lake. As rumors buzz about mysterious underground tunnels, the evidence from the snowmobile says one thing: murder. Gus Carpenter, editor of the local newspaper, has recently returned to Starvation after a failed attempt to make it big at the Detroit Times. In his youth, Gus was the goalie who let a state championship get away, crushing Coach's dreams and earning the town's enmity. Now he's investigating the murder of his former coach. But even more unsettling to Gus are the holes in the town's past and the gnawing suspicion that those holes may conceal some dark and disturbing secrets secrets that some of the people closest to him may have killed to keep.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 96
 Nice Try But.....Nah. August 26, 2010
zorba (Bala Cynwyd, Pa USA)
Too much hockey, not enough suspense, too predictible. I tried to like this book but finally had to admit after 100-and-some pages that I wasn't enjoying it and I really didn't care about any of the characters. This was essentially a book about hockey with wisps of a mystery thrown in. Neither the hockey nor the mystery was strong enough to hold my interest. I think the author tried hard in this, his first novel. But, in my mind, he just didn't pull it off. He's an able writer but he's got to give us more than this tepid effort in future books.
Good mystery! August 23, 2010
Avid Reader and Listener (Michigan)
This was a good mystery. I picked it up as I was going on vacation to Starvation Lake, which made it even more enjoyable. He's a good writer, and I then read HANGING TREE too.
 An excellent thriller July 30, 2010
T. J. Mathews (Livermore, CA USA)
Through the eyes of Gus Carpenter, editor of the Starvation Lake Pilot, Bryan Gruley tells the story of tiny Starvation Lake in upstate Michigan, a town that has seen more than its share of opportunities fail to materialize. One of those missed opportunities was a shot at the state hockey championship that that ended badly due, in the minds of many, to a critical goaltending error on Gus's part. From that moment on nothing seemed to go right for Starvation Lake. When the popular coach that turned the ragtag team into a legitimate contender dies in a tragic snowmobiling accident on a frozen lake the town goes all out to honor his memory.
Now twenty years later part of the snowmobile washes ashore at a lake different from the one it supposedly was lost in. What could have happened? This question in itself wasn't compelling enough to make me read the book when I first got it but when it started garnering award nominations I finally picked it up and started reading it and I'm glad I did. The story quickly gets a lot more complicated as Gus attempts to find out what really happened.
Back when I was in journalism school my professor was fond of saying 'The devil is in the details'. Gruley, a bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, must have had the same professor. In `Starvation Lake' he deftly spins multiple thin threads together into a thrilling story that threatens to turn Starvation Lake upside down. I highly recommend this book and am looking forward to the sequel due out in August.
 Great promise - but a letdown ending - 3.5 stars May 29, 2010
Gary Simpson (Geelong, Australia)
Author Brian Gruley's debut, "Starvation Lake", the first it seems in a series, is filled with lots and lots of promise, but (like several other reviewers before me have noted) is really bad let down with a poorly contrived ending that was a little too far fetched and almost out of context to the rest of the book. A pity too, for the premise of the small Michigan town and the bevy of interesting characters that abound within it is excellent. As an ice hockey fan (and a lover of sports in general), it was great to see the game incorporated into what is an interesting plot - the mysterious disappearance (death) of the town's successful junior hockey coach ten years previous.
Let's hope that volume two can deliver on the groundwork this one has had put in.
Joseph's brothers came to the Pharoah's land for food to keep thier people from starvation. The Bible April 19, 2010
michael a. draper (Guilford, CT)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Gus Carpenter returns to Starvation Lake after working as a reporter for a Detroit newspaper and getting into trouble by withholding the source of one of his stories.
Now, Gus runs "The Pilot," a local paper. A snowmobile has washed up Walleye Lake. When Gus arrives at the scene, Sheriff Dengus Aho refuses to give him any information. Later, the snowmobile is shown to be missing hockey coach Jack Blackburn's, who has been missing since 1988.
Gus has his reporter, Joanie McCarthy, investigate the story. While he is visited by former hockey teammate, and current Real Estate developer, Teddy Boynton. He wants to build a marina and luxury hotel on the lake and asks Gus to support his venture in his paper.
The story flashes back to 1970 when Blackburn arrived in Starvation Lake. He had coached in Canada and began coaching a team of younger players including, Gus, his friend "Soupy" Campbell and Boynton. Eventually, the team became good enough to play for the state title. The coach became a pitchman for a real estate developer and as the team became better, interest and development in the town followed.
However, when the team fell one victory short of the title, interest in the team and Starvation Lake dwindled.
With the discovery of the snowmobile, secrets that had been hidden for years, gradually come out. What was the coach and his assistant, Leo Redpath, hiding? Somehow, a number of young men who played for the coach seemed to change and become withdrawn, but no one could put it together until Gus and his reporter, began digging.
This is a splendid debut novel with excellent characterization and description. The author has a background in hockey and in reporting and he uses this to give a realistic story with good visual images. Gus and his friend Soupy are well described characters who are easy to sympathise with.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 96
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